WESTERN SLOPE NO-FEE COALITION
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October 29, 2015  

 
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DEAR PUBLIC LANDS SUPPORTER 
Kitty Benzar ,

A hearing was held yesterday morning in the House Natural Resources Committee on a draft bill to revise federal recreation fee authority. Much like the bill introduced last session but never enacted, this bill would allow fees to be charged everywhere to anyone doing anything.
But even worse than last year's bill, the current one would require the agencies to privatize even more publicly owned facilities through expanded use of concessionaires, and even to sell them outright into private ownership.
This bill is the wrong direction for federal public lands.
The hearing record is open for public written testimony until November 6. Please take a few moments to share your thoughts with the Committee members and urge them not to enact this bill.  
HOUSE BILL WOULD PRIVATIZE MORE FEDERAL LANDS, CHOP SENIOR/DISABLED CAMPING DISCOUNTS, AND EXPAND FEES TO MORE AREAS
 
Senior Pass holders would no longer get a camping discount on Memorial Day, 4th of July,  Labor Day, and two other days a year. 
 A bill presented as a "discussion draft" of legislation to reform the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act was published last week and discussed in a hearing in the House Resources Committee today.

The draft resembles HR 5204, which was a bill introduced in the House last session by Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT), but not enacted. Like that bill, this language, if enacted, could destroy the concept of public lands as places where everyone has access and is welcome. Every place, every activity, every person, could be required to pay a fee - an additional tax on top of the taxes that already support public lands - for access, regardless whether they are highly developed like National Parks and Forest Service or BLM campgrounds, or completely undeveloped like Wilderness Areas.

The draft would allow the kind of fees that have not been controversial to continue, such as fees for developed campgrounds and National Park entrance fees. But in addition to those fees, it would allow general access fees for any federal recreational lands and waters. It would accomplish this by two types of fee: Day Use Fees and Permit Fees. 

The only meaningful requirement for a Day Use Fee would be that where you park there is a toilet of some kind (could be a porta-potty or a stinky outhouse) within 1/2 mile.

The only meaningful requirement for a Permit Fee would be that you are visiting a "special area." Neither "special" nor "area" is defined. The land agencies would have complete discretion to claim that any place at all is a "special area."

So where there is a toilet it could be called a Day Use Fee. Where there is not a toilet, it could be called a Permit Fee. The result is the same: there would not be anyplace where a fee is not allowed. And since the agencies would get to keep all the fee money directly, there would be not be anywhere that they wouldn't have a strong incentive to charge a fee.

Besides those provisions, which were defeated in the last session but are back, this bill proposes some truly ugly additional measures.
  • Concessionaire management of recreation facilities by private companies, which is widespread and widely unpopular on the National Forests, would be extended to Bureau of Land Management facilities as well.
  • The use of for-profit operation by private concessionaires would be enshrined in the law as the preferred management model, so almost no facilities would be directly operated by the federal agencies.
  • Concessionaires would be incentivized to build privately owned and highly developed infrastructure on public lands by being offered 30-year permits instead of the current 5 to10 years.
  • Federally built and owned recreation infrastructure could be sold outright into private hands.
  • The camping discounts that holders of Interagency Senior and Access passes are entitled to would be eliminated for the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends and the 4th of July, as well as two other days each year of the agencies' choice.
Public lands? Forget that. Not any more. Not if this passes.

This draft bill lacks any over-arching vision or framework of our public lands being spaces where we all are welcome and have access. It's being supported by groups like the The National Forest Recreation Association, the American Recreation Coalition, and the National Parks Hospitality Association, which lobby on behalf of commercial interests that operate on federal land. For the general public, there is nothing redeeming in this bill, nor any way it could be amended into something acceptable. It represents a complete change in public lands policy, which would be accomplished without public hearings or debate.
  
At the hearing there was no witness who spoke on behalf of ordinary people who just want to be able to visit their public lands without having to empty their wallet. If you want your voice to be heard you must speak up on your own.

The hearing record is open for written public testimony until November 6th, 2015. Please craft a short, polite, and thoughtful comment and make it as personal to your own experiences as you can. Be sure to specify that you want your comment included in the record of the October 28 hearing.

Send your comment to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, via their staff members, at the following addresses: 
 
Representative Tom McClintock, Chair
House Committee on Natural Resources
Subcommittee on Federal Lands 
Washington, D.C. 20515
Erica.Rhoad@mail.house.gov

Representative Niki Tsongas, Ranking Member
House Committee on Natural Resources
Subcommittee on Federal Lands 
Washington, D.C. 20515
Brandon.Bragato@mail.house.gov

Thanks for coming to the defense of your public lands! 
The Western Slope No-Fee Coalition is a broad-based organization consisting of diverse interests including hiking, biking, boating, equestrian and motorized enthusiasts, community groups, local and state elected officials, conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, and just plain citizens.
 
Our goals are:
    • To eliminate recreation fees for general access to public lands managed by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management
    • To eliminate backcountry fees and interpretive program fees in National Parks
    • To require more accountability within the land management agencies
    • To encourage Congress to adequately fund our public lands
 
Thank you for your support!
 
Sincerely,
 
Kitty Benzar
Western Slope No Fee Coalition