HR 3283

Permanent Recreation Fee Bill, HR 3283, Passes Resources Committee markup today

HR 3283, which would enact permanent fees for the recreational use of America’s public lands, passed House Resources Committee markup with only one Congressman speaking in dissent this morning. The sole voice of opposition came from Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), minority chair of the House Resources Committee, and a strong no-fee supporter. He referred to recreation fees as a new tax and supported full tax-dollar funding of our world-class public lands. He also stated that summer visitors to America's public lands would need a certified public accountant to calculate the total of various fees they would incur from a trip, say, around the west.

Authored by Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH), who created the controversial Recreation Fee Demo Program in the Interior Appropriations subcommittee in 1996,

HR 3283 was amended by Resources Committee Chair Richard Pombo (R-CA) to prohibit the charging of fees simply for parking your car at the side of the road. But it grew from 17 to 42 pages and leaves wide open “basic fees” for trailheads and dispersed camping and “expanded fees” for sites such as car campgrounds and boat launches.

“It is disappointing that western Congressmen and other members of both parties, who have voted before to oppose forest recreation fees, raised not a word of protest against a permanent, multi-agency recreation fee bill,” says Robert Funkhouser, President of the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition.

“Apparently Committee members did not wish to cross Rep. Regula, who will next year chair the House Appropriations Committee, controlling the purse strings of Congress.”

Mr. Regula conspicuously sat in the front row of today's hearing watching
carefully to see who would support him and who would dare to oppose him. He
sat where he did, so that everyone on the Resources Committee could get a
good look at him and so that he could keep an attentive ear upon everything
said by each committee member.

Reports are that not one Committee member raised their voice to vote against the bill.

Fee opponents with Colorado’s Western Slope No Fee Coalition had worked with Resources Committee staff to craft a bill limiting fees to developed sites. But no headway was made against Administration pressure for multiple layers of recreation fees.

Looking ahead, this close to the year’s end, there is insufficient time for the Senate to hold hearings to vote on HR 3283. Earlier in the year, the Senate unanimously passed S. 1107, which makes permanent only Park Service fees, leaving fees for the other public lands agencies to lapse at the end of 2005. This means that Congress will have to revisit this topic early in 2005 and reach a timely compromise between House and Senate recreation fee bills.

According to Funkhouser, “Clearly Congressman Regula, who has no public lands in his district, was able to scare our Representatives, even those in the west, into approving this new tax on public land access. These are One Man’s Lands, Regula’s, not Public Lands. So much for being represented in Washington.”



*The current text of HR 3283 at markup is not available to the public for the next few days.



*The following is the text of Ranking Member Congressman’s Rahall’s comments.



Opening Statement of U.S. Rep. Nick J. Rahall, II
Ranking Democrat - Resources Committee
H.R. 3283: Recreational Fee Program
September 22, 2004

Mr. Chairman, I commend you and Representative Regula for taking the time
to address the recreational fee demonstration program. Both H.R. 3283 and
the substitute I understand you intend to offer, Mr. Chairman, are serious,
comprehensive attempts to develop a workable program.

However, when these proposals are boiled down, one fact remains:
recreational fees are tax increases. And these increases reach into the
wallet of middle class families who are already being pinched and squeezed
at every opportunity by misguided economic policies.

Sadly, even with recreational fees in place, our system of National Parks
and Public Lands teeters on the verge of bankruptcy. Backlogged maintenance
and visitor needs are ignored as the gap between what the system has, and
what it needs, grows wider.

This Administration and this Congress have cheated our Parks and Public
Lands year after year and the band aid provided by user fees cannot stop the
bleeding. The bill before us is an attempt to remedy this failure by
applying an even larger band aid to a fractured budget policy, and I do not
need a medical degree to know that approach will fail.

Before this hemorrhaging permanently stains our natural resources heritage,
we should reexamine our priorities and begin to provide the funding needed
to support a world class system of National Parks and Public Lands without
resorting to an unjust and unjustified tax increase on our citizens.

During my years of service on the Transportation Committee, I have refused
to support charging tolls on our Interstate Highways. That is what people
pay gas taxes at the pump for, to build and maintain highways. Tolling is
double taxation. In my view, the recreational fee program is no different.

Since 1996, we have been conducting what was supposed to be a brief
experiment to determine whether a recreational fee program is feasible. And
what have we seen in this experiment gone awry - visitors are frustrated,
confused and angered over being charged to use resources they already own.

Reading this legislation is just like reading the tax code: five agencies,
four different types of fees, twenty different classes of exemptions, three
different types of passes, and more than 50 resource councils to help sort
it all out.

When the average American family sits down to plan their summer vacation to
the National Parks, in addition to their maps and guidebooks, they will need
a CPA and a loan officer to determine what they will owe in fees.

As it stands, it costs the average American more to spend a day in many of
our National Parks than it costs a mining company to pick up several acres
of federal land under the Mining Law of 1872. That is just flat wrong.

Mr. Chairman, both the underlying bill and your substitute authorize the
expenditure of fee revenues to enhance things like visitor enjoyment,
habitat restoration, hunting, fishing and visitor health and safety on
public lands. To me that sounds like the job of this Committee, this
Congress and this Administration, not the seniors, parents and kids who
visit our public lands.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

_______________________________________________________________
Contact information for Western Slope No Fee Coalition:

Robert Funkhouser, President (802) 867-2298 rfunk9999@earthlink.net

Box 403

Norwood, Colorado 81423