YellowSub1962
03-11-2002, 08:46 AM
EDIT: Some of this was originally posted by Crowdog and myself in a couple different threads, I combined it all here and deleted the other threads...
PSD
---
Below is pasted a press release which establishes that Congress is FAR
from making forest fees permanent! It comes from
closed-door meetings late last year between key Congressional committee
staffers and the Forest Service's legislative
analyst.
Please feel free to distribute this e-mail far and wide. It's possibly
the best news we've had yet, in five years of fighting Fee
Demo.
The following is laid out as a press release to encourage you to submit
it to your local newspapers for a story. (Most
Southern California papers will receive it directly from us.) If you
see the story in print, please clip it, with the date and
newspaper noted and mail it to us at KSWC, PO Box 715, Ojai, CA 93024.
Thanks!
=======================
For immediate release
Contacts: Alasdair Coyne, Keep Sespe Wild,
(805) 921-0618
Steve Holmer, American Lands,DC ,
(202) 547-9105
3.5.02
FOREST FEES STALLED, SAY KEY CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES
Permanent fees for hiking and backpacking are nowhere close to
actuality, goes the message received by
US Forest Service legislative affairs staff from visits to key House and
Senate Committees which oversee
the future of the Recreation Fee Demo Program.
Comments from the meetings with House and Senate staff on Fee Demo's
status were summarized in
around three dozen bullet points, in late November 2001, in a memo that
was anonymously leaked to
Keep Sespe Wild Committee in February.
The full text of the memo is available on our website at -
www.sespewild.org/usfsmemo.html
Key points are quoted here from the meeting with House Resource
Committee staff:
. No interest from Democrats on Committee in pursuing replacement
authority
[i.e. making Fee Demo permanent, as opposed to extending it for a
fifth time.]
. Might consider permanent national parks fee legislation at this time,
but not Forest Service.
. Forest Service needs to get heat turned down in Oregon, Washington,
Idaho and California before
permanent authority will be considered.
. Substantial contingent on Democrat side think that public resources
should be open and free.
Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee minority staffers commented
that they "don't have the
votes to make fee programs permanent."
"It's very encouraging that the public outcry over National Forest
recreation fees has made such a solid
impact on the key Committees in Congress," states Alasdair Coyne,
Conservation Director of Keep Sespe
Wild Committee, a southern Californian conservation organization. He
continues that "this means that
President Bush's recent budget request for permanent fee authority on
America's publicly-owned lands
will have an uphill battle in Congress."
Around 230 organizations around the nation, from the Sierra Club to
local watershed groups, have
opposed fees for basic access to public lands, since Fee Demo was first
authorized in 1996. A nationwide
Day of Action Fee Demo protest is scheduled for Saturday, June 15th.
---
Letters to the Editor of the SF Chronicle should be addressed to
chronletters@sfgate.com
-------- begin quoted ---------
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/03/06
/SP89630.DTL
Parks fees up for consideration
Tom Stienstra - Wednesday, March 6, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle
ONE OF the most contentious public land issues in America -- charging
for
recreation access to national forests -- likely will face a do-or-die
verdict in the near future.
"Whether you agree or not, there is a definite desire with a lot of
people
to have an up or down on the fee program," said Teri Cleeland, fee
program
manager for the Forest Service at Washington, D.C., headquarters. "Some
areas it has worked, some it has not. That has been the nature of the
test,
but the test has gone all too long."
Charging for recreation access to national forests started as a test in
1996, when visitors at selected national forests were required to
purchase a
pass for hiking, boat launching and parking. This program is in place
across
Southern California at Los Padres, Angeles, San Bernardino and Cleveland
national forests, as well as in Northern California at Mount Shasta and
Shasta Lake. The cost is usually $5 per day or $25 per season, though at
Shasta Lake, the charge at boat ramps is $6 per day or $75 per season.
Money collected at trailheads, boat ramps, campgrounds and parking areas
is
then used to fund recreation programs solely for the area where it was
collected, rather than sent to the U.S. Department of Treasury as are
the
proceeds from most other federal fees. Many of the best recreational
opportunities on public land in the West are on national forests.
California
has 20 national forests that cover roughly 20 million acres and feature
800
campgrounds that can be reached by car and thousands of primitive sites
on
foot or horseback. Along with Oregon and Washington, where there are an
additional 19 national forests, these lands are the No. 1 destination in
the
West for camping, hiking, fishing, backpacking, hunting, four-wheeling
and
firewood cutting.
Last fall, the House Resources Committee started an inquiry into the fee
program with meetings that were marked by the opposition of Nick Rahall,
D-W. Va., minority chair of the committee.
"He believes it's a form of dual taxation," said Jim Zoia, a staff
member of
the Resources Committee. "He's opposed to the demo program because it's
become de facto permanent, that they (Congress) keep on reauthorizing it
as
a rider in appropriations bills."
Several groups vehemently oppose the program, including Keep Sespe Wild
in
Southern California and Free the Forests in Washington. They and other
organizations are promoting a nationwide boycott of the fee on Saturday,
June 15.
Forest Service rangers in the field have verified that public reaction
has
been split and extreme. For example, they say visitors to Shasta Lake
from
the Bay Area and Sacramento quickly pay the fee without question or
concern.
Yet, longtime residents of rural areas that neighbor the forests not
only
oppose the fee but have damaged fee collection stations.
At one boat ramp at a mountain lake in Shasta-Trinity National Forest,
the
fee station has been shot, hit with a sledgehammer and chained and
uprooted,
and the adjacent billboard with material explaining the fee program has
been
cut off at the legs by a chainsaw and then burned in a bonfire.
Yet at Shasta Lake, the Forest Service collects nearly $1 million per
year,
spent primarily on the installation of floating restrooms, trash pickup,
boat- in campsites and boat ramps, with a significant concessionaire fee
for
collection.
Cleeland agreed with those who oppose the fee that it has become "de
facto
permanent" and that "there's a fatigue with the demonstration program."
That is why she is preparing an analysis of the program for Congress,
anticipating a vote on whether to make user fees permanent or to end
them.
"We've learned that people accept fees when they see an added benefit,"
Cleeland said. "We know that some services should be provided by taxes,
others through user fees. We're trying to work through these very
questions
for Congress."
E-mail Tom Stienstra at <mailto:tstienstra@sfchronicle.com>
</chronicle/info/copyright> ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle Page C - 2
--
Michael Zierhut
zierhutm@ojai.net
Free Our Forests
http://www.freeourforests.org
:usa:
PSD
---
Below is pasted a press release which establishes that Congress is FAR
from making forest fees permanent! It comes from
closed-door meetings late last year between key Congressional committee
staffers and the Forest Service's legislative
analyst.
Please feel free to distribute this e-mail far and wide. It's possibly
the best news we've had yet, in five years of fighting Fee
Demo.
The following is laid out as a press release to encourage you to submit
it to your local newspapers for a story. (Most
Southern California papers will receive it directly from us.) If you
see the story in print, please clip it, with the date and
newspaper noted and mail it to us at KSWC, PO Box 715, Ojai, CA 93024.
Thanks!
=======================
For immediate release
Contacts: Alasdair Coyne, Keep Sespe Wild,
(805) 921-0618
Steve Holmer, American Lands,DC ,
(202) 547-9105
3.5.02
FOREST FEES STALLED, SAY KEY CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES
Permanent fees for hiking and backpacking are nowhere close to
actuality, goes the message received by
US Forest Service legislative affairs staff from visits to key House and
Senate Committees which oversee
the future of the Recreation Fee Demo Program.
Comments from the meetings with House and Senate staff on Fee Demo's
status were summarized in
around three dozen bullet points, in late November 2001, in a memo that
was anonymously leaked to
Keep Sespe Wild Committee in February.
The full text of the memo is available on our website at -
www.sespewild.org/usfsmemo.html
Key points are quoted here from the meeting with House Resource
Committee staff:
. No interest from Democrats on Committee in pursuing replacement
authority
[i.e. making Fee Demo permanent, as opposed to extending it for a
fifth time.]
. Might consider permanent national parks fee legislation at this time,
but not Forest Service.
. Forest Service needs to get heat turned down in Oregon, Washington,
Idaho and California before
permanent authority will be considered.
. Substantial contingent on Democrat side think that public resources
should be open and free.
Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee minority staffers commented
that they "don't have the
votes to make fee programs permanent."
"It's very encouraging that the public outcry over National Forest
recreation fees has made such a solid
impact on the key Committees in Congress," states Alasdair Coyne,
Conservation Director of Keep Sespe
Wild Committee, a southern Californian conservation organization. He
continues that "this means that
President Bush's recent budget request for permanent fee authority on
America's publicly-owned lands
will have an uphill battle in Congress."
Around 230 organizations around the nation, from the Sierra Club to
local watershed groups, have
opposed fees for basic access to public lands, since Fee Demo was first
authorized in 1996. A nationwide
Day of Action Fee Demo protest is scheduled for Saturday, June 15th.
---
Letters to the Editor of the SF Chronicle should be addressed to
chronletters@sfgate.com
-------- begin quoted ---------
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/03/06
/SP89630.DTL
Parks fees up for consideration
Tom Stienstra - Wednesday, March 6, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle
ONE OF the most contentious public land issues in America -- charging
for
recreation access to national forests -- likely will face a do-or-die
verdict in the near future.
"Whether you agree or not, there is a definite desire with a lot of
people
to have an up or down on the fee program," said Teri Cleeland, fee
program
manager for the Forest Service at Washington, D.C., headquarters. "Some
areas it has worked, some it has not. That has been the nature of the
test,
but the test has gone all too long."
Charging for recreation access to national forests started as a test in
1996, when visitors at selected national forests were required to
purchase a
pass for hiking, boat launching and parking. This program is in place
across
Southern California at Los Padres, Angeles, San Bernardino and Cleveland
national forests, as well as in Northern California at Mount Shasta and
Shasta Lake. The cost is usually $5 per day or $25 per season, though at
Shasta Lake, the charge at boat ramps is $6 per day or $75 per season.
Money collected at trailheads, boat ramps, campgrounds and parking areas
is
then used to fund recreation programs solely for the area where it was
collected, rather than sent to the U.S. Department of Treasury as are
the
proceeds from most other federal fees. Many of the best recreational
opportunities on public land in the West are on national forests.
California
has 20 national forests that cover roughly 20 million acres and feature
800
campgrounds that can be reached by car and thousands of primitive sites
on
foot or horseback. Along with Oregon and Washington, where there are an
additional 19 national forests, these lands are the No. 1 destination in
the
West for camping, hiking, fishing, backpacking, hunting, four-wheeling
and
firewood cutting.
Last fall, the House Resources Committee started an inquiry into the fee
program with meetings that were marked by the opposition of Nick Rahall,
D-W. Va., minority chair of the committee.
"He believes it's a form of dual taxation," said Jim Zoia, a staff
member of
the Resources Committee. "He's opposed to the demo program because it's
become de facto permanent, that they (Congress) keep on reauthorizing it
as
a rider in appropriations bills."
Several groups vehemently oppose the program, including Keep Sespe Wild
in
Southern California and Free the Forests in Washington. They and other
organizations are promoting a nationwide boycott of the fee on Saturday,
June 15.
Forest Service rangers in the field have verified that public reaction
has
been split and extreme. For example, they say visitors to Shasta Lake
from
the Bay Area and Sacramento quickly pay the fee without question or
concern.
Yet, longtime residents of rural areas that neighbor the forests not
only
oppose the fee but have damaged fee collection stations.
At one boat ramp at a mountain lake in Shasta-Trinity National Forest,
the
fee station has been shot, hit with a sledgehammer and chained and
uprooted,
and the adjacent billboard with material explaining the fee program has
been
cut off at the legs by a chainsaw and then burned in a bonfire.
Yet at Shasta Lake, the Forest Service collects nearly $1 million per
year,
spent primarily on the installation of floating restrooms, trash pickup,
boat- in campsites and boat ramps, with a significant concessionaire fee
for
collection.
Cleeland agreed with those who oppose the fee that it has become "de
facto
permanent" and that "there's a fatigue with the demonstration program."
That is why she is preparing an analysis of the program for Congress,
anticipating a vote on whether to make user fees permanent or to end
them.
"We've learned that people accept fees when they see an added benefit,"
Cleeland said. "We know that some services should be provided by taxes,
others through user fees. We're trying to work through these very
questions
for Congress."
E-mail Tom Stienstra at <mailto:tstienstra@sfchronicle.com>
</chronicle/info/copyright> ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle Page C - 2
--
Michael Zierhut
zierhutm@ojai.net
Free Our Forests
http://www.freeourforests.org
:usa: