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84–415 PDF 2003

S. HRG. 107–825

RECREATION FEES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON

S. 2473

TO ENHANCE THE RECREATIONAL FEE DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM

FOR THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

S. 2607

TO AUTHORIZE THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR AND THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE TO COLLECT RECREATION FEES ON

FEDERAL LANDS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

JUNE 19, 2002

(

Printed for the use of the

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

(II)

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico, Chairman

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota

BOB GRAHAM, Florida

RON WYDEN, Oregon

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana

EVAN BAYH, Indiana

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware

FRANK H. MURKOWSKI, Alaska

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

DON NICKLES, Oklahoma

LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho

BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado

CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama

CONRAD BURNS, Montana

JON KYL, Arizona

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

GORDON SMITH, Oregon

ROBERT M. SIMON, Staff Director

SAM E. FOWLER, Chief Counsel

BRIAN P. MALNAK, Republican Staff Director

JAMES P. BEIRNE, Republican Chief Counsel

DAVID BROOKS, Senior Counsel

NANCIE AMES, Bevinetto Fellow

(III)

C O N T E N T S

STATEMENTS

Page

Akaka, Hon. Daniel K., U.S. Senator from Hawaii .............................................. 5

Baucus, Hon. Max, U.S. Senator from Montana ................................................... 3

Bingaman, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator from New Mexico .......................................... 1

Campbell, Hon. Ben Nighthorse, U.S. Senator from Colorado ............................ 4

Rey, Mark, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Department of Agriculture .............................................................................................. 14

Scarlett, P. Lynn, Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget,

Department of the Interior .................................................................................. 6

Thomas, Hon. Craig, U.S. Senator from Wyoming ............................................... 5

APPENDIXES

Additional material submitted for the record ........................................................ 29

(1)

RECREATION FEES

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 2002

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES, Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:33 a.m., in room

SD–366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jeff Bingaman,

chairman, presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF BINGAMAN,

U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order.

The purpose of the hearing is to consider the issue of recreation

fees on Federal lands, specifically to review two fee bills that are

pending in the committee. The bills are S. 2473, which is Senator

Thomas’ bill to authorize admission and recreation use fees at

units of the National Park System, and S. 2607, which is my legislation, to authorize recreation fees for the Park Service, Fish and

Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the Forest

Service.

In 1996, an amendment was included in the Interior and Related

Agencies Appropriations Act establishing the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program. This program authorized the three Department of the Interior land management agencies and the Forest

Service to establish a fee program ‘‘to demonstrate the feasibility

of user-generated cost recovery for the operation and maintenance

of recreation areas or sites and habitat enhancement projects on

Federal lands.’’

Unlike the existing fee authority in the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, which was developed by this committee and its

predecessor, the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, the Fee

Demonstration Program did not place any restrictions on the Federal agencies either in the amount or the type of fees that were

charged. Instead, the program authorizes the agencies to collect

fees, notwithstanding any other provision of law.

Since its creation in 1996, the Fee Demonstration Program has

twice been extended. It now runs through the end of fiscal year

2004. There have been several proposals to make the Fee Demonstration Program permanent. I believe that if we do not address

this issue in the authorizing committee this year, there is a good

chance the Fee Demonstration Program will be made permanent in

the next appropriations cycle or, at the very least, be extended once

more.

2

While I think it is important for us to move a fee bill this year,

I understand that recreation fees can be controversial, especially in

certain areas of the country, and I want to take a minute to explain

the criteria I think we should use for a recreation fee bill.

First, any bill must ensure that recreation fees are fair and affordable and that visitors are not prevented from using public

lands because of fees.

Second, a bill should allow the land management agencies to use

fee revenues without further appropriation and ensure that most

fees are spent in the area where they are collected.

Third, recreation fees should supplement and not offset existing

appropriations.

Fourth, all Federal agencies should establish a consistent fee policy and we should have a single legislative authority for fees.

Fifth, Congress should set limits on the agencies’ authority to

charge fees in specific circumstances, and toward that end, we

should include statutory prohibitions on specific activities for which

fees should not be charged.

And finally, consistent with these goals, we should allow Federal

land managers flexibility to manage their fee programs.

I do not believe that simply making the Fee Demonstration Program permanent will achieve these goals. I know there is some confusion about my bill being an extension of that program. I want to

clarify what the bill tries to achieve.

I do believe there is general support for ensuring that fees collected are spent primarily at the collection site, whether for resource protection or addressing maintenance backlogs or other critical funding needs. The legislation I have introduced continues to

align the agencies to keep fee revenues instead of returning them

to the general treasury.

At the same time, I do not agree with the broad authority in the

Fee Demonstration Program that allows Federal agencies to charge

a fee for anything without any limitations. To address that concern,

S. 2607 includes many provisions that were originally included in

the Land and Water Conservation Fund fee authorities and some

other limitations as well, including restrictions on the types of

areas for which an entrance fee may be charged and restrictions on

the types of activities for which a daily use fee may be charged.

For example, the bill prohibits levying a use fee for access to a

visitor center, for access to a dispersed area with little Federal investment and for stopping at a scenic overlook among other restrictions. I believe the Forest Service’s efforts to charge fees in some

cases for these types of activities have met with considerable opposition from many visitors, and that is justifiable opposition.

A major concern I have with the recreation fee issue as a whole

is that I do not want these fees to be a deterrent to public use of

our public lands, especially for those with lower incomes. I have

tried to ensure in this bill that all fees be fair and equitable. If we

need to clarify that fees must also be affordable, then I would be

anxious to do that.

We have representatives from both the Department of the Interior and the Agriculture Department here this morning. I hope we

will be able to explore the fee issue in detail with these witnesses.

3

I think it is important that as the authorizing committee, we finally begin the discussion on this issue.

With S. 2607, I have tried to address what I believe are some of

the major concerns with the existing fee policies. I look forward to

working with other members of the committee and particularly

Senator Thomas and the bill he has in the committee to produce

a good resolution on this issue.

We received several hundred statements for the record, all of

which have expressed opposition to the Fee Demonstration Program, and we will include all those statements in the record.

Senator Campbell, did you have any opening statement?

[A prepared statement from Senator Baucus follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MAX BAUCUS, U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to testify here today regarding the

Recreation Fee Demonstration Program.

As you know, the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program was originally designed as a short-term trial program. This program allows the four major federal

land management agencies, the Bureau of Land Management, the United States

Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the United States Fish and Wildlife

Service, to test the feasibility of using new fees to recover some of the costs associated with operating and maintaining federal recreation sites.

Montana has millions of acres of federal land. We have a long hunting, fishing

and recreation tradition that is a way of life for folks from every walk of life in Montana, from farmer to logger, to businessman to conservationist. Charging the average Montanan to use the National Forest in his or her own backyard, land that

they’ve used freely for generations just doesn’t seem fair. Public lands have to remain open and accessible to all Montanans, for this generation and the next.

Although I understand that, particularly in the case of National Parks, fees may

be necessary in areas of heavy recreational use, I urge you to be extremely cautious

in authorizing agencies to rely on fees to pad their budgets, or promote unnecessary

projects in areas that don’t see much recreational use.

Recreation fees could have a disproportionate impact on Montana’s working class

men and women, particularly when compared to out-of-state tourists with higher incomes. A lot of hard-working Montanans already pay taxes to manage our public

lands. We should not price these people off of their public lands, nor should we require them to subsidize a federal agency’s desire to cater to out-of-state ‘‘customers,’’

in the guise of addressing ‘‘critical’’ maintenance backlogs.

I firmly believe that recreation fees should never replace the Federal Government’s responsibility to take care of the lands that it holds in trust for the public.

I don’t believe we should encourage agencies to set high fees so that they can build

unnecessary developments. Similarly, I just can’t support lifting the 100-project

limit that currently restrains the Forest Service and other federal land management

agencies from relying too heavily on recreation fees to supplement their budgets.

I believe that it is not in our interest to make the Recreation Fee Program permanent right now. Because the Program was designed in 1996, neither Congress, nor

the affected agencies have had a good opportunity to analyze the effectiveness of the

Recreation Fee Program. Before we make this program permanent, we need to have

a better understanding of how monies collected from the program are being spent

and where they are being spent.

For example, I think we’d all agree that the federal land management agencies

have vastly different needs when it comes to recreation. In Montana, we have a lot

of land maintained by the Forest Service. I can guarantee you that the Flathead

National Forest or the Kootenai National Forest don’t see anything even close to the

several million visitors that come to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks each

year, demanding good roads, lodging, food, campsites, interpretive centers, maintained walkways, and other visitor services.

I can understand why the Park Service might need to levy fees in order to maintain many of their customers’ recreational needs. However, the Forest Service simply isn’t the same kind of animal when it comes to recreation. If it were, all of our

forests would be National Parks. I believe it would be a real injustice for Montana

residents to treat the two agencies as if they had equal recreational needs in any

permanent Recreational Fee Program.

4

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate S. 2607’s attempt find a compromisebetween the interests involved in this debate. However, I stronglybelieve that we need to take a

good look at the current demo program and see how effective it is before we make

it permanent. With this in mind, I strongly urge this committee to postpone consideration of S. 2607 until we can be absolutely sure that we have a program that

meets the legitimate needs of the agencies involved while still allowing Montanans

and all Americans to freely enjoy their public lands.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify before you today.

STATEMENT OF HON. BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL,

U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO

Senator CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, I have a conflict, so I have to

leave pretty soon.

But let me just say that this is a very difficult issue out West.

Coming from our neighboring State, New Mexico, I am sure you

have heard from many of your constituents, as I have and as Senator Thomas has, those who believe any kind of a fee is a form of

double taxation, and others who demand better and better facilities.

My own view has been that if you are taking something from the

land, or there is something you are using there, mining or timber

or so on, I understand that you have to have fees. In a national

park, obviously if you wanted upgraded facilities, bathrooms, campgrounds, and so on, I think they very clearly need the revenue to

do it.

I am concerned somewhat, though, on a fee proposal that would

be enacted for those who just want to go out and look at the forest.

You mentioned the caveats in your bill, for instance, an overlook

where people could drive through and they would not be charged.

I think that is good.

I have a big book at home that lists all of the campgrounds in

the United States, public and private campgrounds, where you can

go with your RV and camp. If you look at the difference between

the private ones that provide different services and barbecue pits

and all kinds of things and look at the ones that are in the national

forest, I mean it is different as night and day. The ones in the forests, there just is not anything there. There is a place to pull off

literally. Most of them, at best, might have a port-a-potty or two,

but other than that, there is almost nothing in any of those campgrounds. So, if you are not doing anything more than just pulling

off the road and parking for a while, I do not know what the fee

would be for unless it is to try to improve things, if that is what

people are demanding. On the other hand, if they do, then I wonder

if they are not getting in competition with the private campgrounds. So, it is a very difficult problem.

Certainly in all three of our States, the tourism is at least one

of the backbones of our State economics. When you tell people that

you are going to start charging to go into the forest or onto the

public land, other than the parks, I think there might be some concerns from the standpoint of what it is going to do to our tourism

industries.

I would just mention that I have some further statements and

a couple of questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Senator Thomas.

5

STATEMENT OF HON. CRAIG THOMAS, U.S. SENATOR

FROM WYOMING

Senator THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for having this hearing. I think it is very important and timely that we

do something to, in my view, make permanent this Fee Demonstration Program.

Obviously, there have been mixed reviews in the 5 or 6 years

that it has been out there. I think it has been a demonstration, and

from that demonstration, we ought to have learned how we can

best do this. I think the Forest Service ought to be congratulated,

for they probably did more on demonstrations and trying different

things than any other agency, frankly. Now, some of those were not

very well received, as a matter of fact, so there is some criticism.

But nevertheless, that is what this was, a demonstration.

So, as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, I have a bill. Mine limits

it to the National Park Service. I am not totally dedicated to that

idea, but as Senator Campbell was talking about, I think we have

to be very selective about the kinds of places in which charges are

made. There have to be some services there that are unusual. It

sort of bothers me to be talking about fees on public lands. Public

lands in Wyoming means the BLM, it means miles and miles of

stuff with nothing on it. Now, I know that technically is not probably right, but that is the view we have. Parks are not seen as public lands in the same category as the open space or much of the

Forest Service.

I believe that we can work out something here. I think there

ought to be some criteria, as you have suggested, as to where this

takes place. I think it is too bad when we have a facility and you

have a sequence of five or six different fees for different things in

the same place. I think that is not good. You certainly ought not

to have to have a permit or charge a fee to go on Forest Service

or BLM land just to be there.

So, I have some questions about where we are on it. I think there

ought to be more accountability of the funds. I am not quite sure

the 80 percent has ever gotten to where it is supposed to be. We

talk of having 32 percent costs to be able to collect this money.

That is way too high. But I look forward to it, Mr. Chairman, and

I am sure we can work out something that will be good for the

lands and good for the visitors. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Senator Akaka, did you have an opening statement?

STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. AKAKA, U.S. SENATOR

FROM HAWAII

Senator AKAKA. Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and

thank you very much for holding this hearing on the recreational

fee program.

I would like to add my welcome to our two witnesses, welcome

to the committee. I have met both of you before and worked with

Mr. Rey during his years on the committee. So, welcome back.

The recreational fee demo programs under consideration today

are temporary programs managed by the Federal land management agencies. In examining whether to permanently authorize fee

authority, we must assess the benefits and weaknesses of the recVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:03 Jan 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 J:\DOCS\84-415 SENERGY3 PsN: SENERGY3
6

reational fees and their uses. Fees are charged for commercial uses

of the public lands such as grazing and logging. I believe it is appropriate to authorize fees for recreational uses of public lands as

part of our responsibility to be stewards of our natural resources,

particularly with the increasing demand for access to public areas.

In my State, Mr. Chairman, the fee demo program has been a

successful venture for our national parks. We have two national

parks in our State that have raised net revenues of over $1 million

in fiscal year 2000. We are in the top 10 of fee demo parks with

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park raising $3.2 million and

Haleakala raising $2.1 million in net revenue. These amounts are

equivalent to 70 percent and 66 percent of the unit budgets by

those parks. The fees are relatively simple—entrance fees for buses

and individuals—and they fluctuate over time. The fees are very

important for our parks to defray costs of maintenance for trails,

interpretation, and facilities in these two parks. Under current law,

we share 20 percent of the revenue with other parks across the Nation.

One of my concerns, Mr. Chairman, is the restricted use of fee

demonstration revenues. In Hawaii, we have an invasive species/

endangered species challenge. One of our parks’ most consistent

problems is the threat of invasive species. Miconia is a fast-growing, aggressive tree that forms dense stands and pushes aside native growth. Miconia, which has devastated Tahiti, is our number

one resource problem in Hawaii’s parks. This threat is eminent at

Haleakala and is most efficiently dealt with before it enters park

boundaries. As we examine both bills today, I hope consideration

can be given to the use of fee demonstration funds to help parks

protect native vegetation and animals against invaders like

Miconia, even if it is technically outside the boundary of the park.

There are many other important issues regarding recreational

fee authority for land management agencies. We must consider the

issues of equity among fees, coordination of fees across agencies,

and the public’s perception of multiple fees which confront them.

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the testimony from our witnesses. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much.

Why do we not go ahead with both of our witnesses here. Our

first witness will be the Honorable Lynn Scarlett who is the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget with the Department of the Interior, and then the Honorable Mark Rey who

is the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment in

the Department of Agriculture. Please go right ahead.

STATEMENT OF P. LYNN SCARLETT, ASSISTANT SECRETARY

FOR POLICY, MANAGEMENT, AND BUDGET, DEPARTMENT OF

THE INTERIOR

Ms. SCARLETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the

committee and thanks for this opportunity to present the Department of the Interior’s views on S. 2473, as well as S. 2607, both

of which address, as we have been discussing, recreation fees. The

Department of the Interior thinks this is an extraordinarily important and timely topic, and we appreciate this opportunity.

7

The Department of the Interior strongly supports the efforts

through both of these bills to establish rec fee authority. In particular, we support the efforts of both of them to allow for reinvestment

of the majority of fees into facilities and services at the sites where

the fees are charged.

A little bit of background. As we all know, of course, Federal

lands are very important to Americans and other visitors for recreation values, for values of reflection and solace, for education purposes. We want to ensure that our Federal lands managed under

the Department of the Interior continue to play this important role

and we view recreation fees as a very important part of pursuing

that mission.

We would like to share some our experiences and lessons learned

through the Fee Demonstration Program and our experience in

general with fees at our public lands. This is experience drawn

from across all of our agencies and, indeed, also from an interagency effort with the Department of Agriculture and the Forest

Service. We recently created an Interagency Recreation Fee Leadership Council. I chair the council with Mark Rey. It has been a

valuable opportunity across agencies to garner information and

share those experiences and try to develop coordinated and better

management of the fee programs.

Let me share some of the achievements first and then move to

lessons learned and some of the challenges that we view as necessary to be addressed in any forthcoming legislation.

First on the achievement, we view these demonstration fees and

recreation fees as having allowed us to actually improve and provide additional benefits to recreationists for local and other visitors

to parks and local communities. Let me give you a couple of examples.

At the South Fork of the Snake River, we had a pilot fee project

there. It was a partnership with the Bureau of Land Management,

the Forest Service, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and

three counties, all working jointly together. The money there has

been used for making facilities more accessible to those with disabilities. It has also replaced and improved vital facilities such as

toilets and parking and so forth. Interestingly enough, in this particular demo program, local communities and users of these parks

and other facilities have been participants in determining how the

fees would be expended.

Cedar Mesa, Utah, another example here drawn from the BLM

experience, used its fee demo monies to support volunteers and seasonal staff, as well as other resources to invest in recreation improvements.

The BLM has partnered with the Grand Canyon Boaters Association to aid in river cleanup, a cooperation that has resulted in the

cleanup of 2 tons of trash over the last 2 years from the rivers.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, in just one example at Back Bay

Wildlife Refuge, had an agreement with the city of Virginia Beach

on programs to help serve 34 summer youth camps serving over

2,000 youths in education programs.

And finally, drawing from the National Park Service, Mount

Rainier National Park undertook a major restoration and expansion of its amphitheater, expanding to be able to accommodate 300

8

people, a more than doubling of that facility, and invested in major

campground improvements.

So, these give you a kind of a glimpse at the kinds of things that

have been done with recreation fee programs.

What have we learned through these efforts? Well, we have

learned, bottom line, that the recreation fees have been pivotal to

improving our ability to serve and enhance the visitor experience.

Last year alone at the Department of the Interior, the fees raised

as much as $130 million, much of which, the largest proportion of

which, actually went into on-the-ground improvements.

But we have learned ways to improve the program, and we have

heard some of the comments about the challenges here this morning from the Senators. But let me highlight several key concerns

that we have come to understand.

These range from lack of consistency in terms of the application

of fees not only among our agencies, but from one unit to another.

And lack of clarity, people being confused regarding why they are

charged one kind of fee for a particular service in one location and

a different fee for the same service in another location. There is

some confusion over too many fees, a layering of fees. And then finally, as Senator Thomas had pointed out, is the importance of accountability and to date some lack of transparency in how the fees

have been utilized, where these monies are going, whether the

monies raised have been fully obligated and so on.

Based on these concerns, the Fee Council that I mentioned has

come up with what we believe are seven guiding principles that

should help us move forward with a positive recreation fee program

in the future, one that is centrally focused on benefits to the visiting public. We agree with all the Senators that that has to be at

the core of any program.

But consider other guiding principles. Rec fees need to be fair

and equitable, with some degree of consistency across units for like

activities. We believe they need to be collaborative not only among

our agencies so that we are taking into account what other agencies are doing as we set our fees, but also with the local communities and other park units from States and counties. They need to

be convenient both in how they are able to be accessed and in how

they are implemented. They need to be accountable and transparent, as I just mentioned. And finally, as some of the Senators

have indicated, we believe efficiency is important in their implementation and we believe we need to strive better at achieving

those efficiencies.

So, what does this mean for the future and any possible recommendations relating to the two bills before us today? We have

five suggestions to supplement the proposals that are on the table

today.

First, we think the Recreation Fee Program should be an interagency one. We are increasingly learning that the public does not

distinguish between one land unit and another land unit. Often,

they are not even aware of the distinctions between one agency and

another. When they are seeking a recreation experience, it is that

experience that they are seeking. So, we think that we need an

interagency effort that enhances coordination among the agencies

9

that has like fees for like kinds of activities regardless of who is

the manager of that particular location.

Secondly, we would like to explore the creation of an interagency

national pass. We think that the National Park Passport that was

developed under Senator Thomas’ leadership is an excellent model.

We think it was a path-breaking and pioneering effort. What we

have learned from that leads us to believe that we should try to

expand on that success. We would like to propose a new annual

interagency pass to expand the National Parks Passport to include

all participating agencies and seamless service to the citizen, provided that there is that common recreation opportunity and that

common investment in enhanced facilities in the particular units

that would be covered.

Third, we would like to establish an improved system of fees to

replace the entrance and use fees. Over the years, starting with the

Land and Water Conservation Fund fees and then building through

the demonstration projects, we have had several decades of evolved

fees, and they have become blurred, people being somewhat confused about what an entrance fee is, what a use fee is. Sometimes

the entrance fee actually gets you use of certain activities, sometimes not. So, we think both that language has become a little bit

blurred and we would like to propose a more consistent fee system

across agencies.

We are proposing what we call a basic fee system which would

provide entry to those areas with a certain level of agreed upon investment, and that would provide you access to the basic opportunities and features of that park, but then also the opportunity for

what we are proposing to be called expanded fees for those activities that involve kind of above and beyond investments for specific

kinds of activities with special costs related to that particular user.

Fourth, and in full concurrence with all of the Senators today, we

believe better reporting on use of fees is necessary and should be

established and formalized. Through our experience, acceptance by

visitors hinges on that reporting and that accountability. We find

from 84 to 90 percent acceptance of the fees when the public can

see that the fee really has benefitted them, has gone to enhance

their opportunities.

And fifth, we would like the authority to establish also some sitespecific or regional multi-entity passes, for example, to benefit regular visitors who live in a particular location, so in a seamless way

they can go across the lands from one agency to another, all of

which have like or similar recreation activities. We think this

would promote partnering with States. We have a couple of examples, as I mentioned, one in Idaho already. We would like to build

on that experience.

In conclusion, I would like to take this opportunity to announce,

in support of the President’s Healthier United States Initiative,

that the National Park Service will be waiving all entrance fees on

June 22 and 23 of this year, in keeping with the longstanding tradition of providing fee-free days periodically. The parks and Federal lands are important contexts in which Americans seek to lead

healthier lives. We thank you for your interest in recreation fees

and their tie to making those opportunities to American citizens

better.

10

Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Scarlett follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF P. LYNN SCARLETT, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF POLICY,

MANAGEMENT, AND BUDGET, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to present the Department of the

Interior’s views on S. 2473, a bill to enhance the recreational fee demonstration program for the National Park Service, and S. 2607, a bill to authorize the Secretary

of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to collect recreation fees on federal

lands. We thank the Committee for the opportunity to discuss this important issue.

The Department strongly supports the efforts through S. 2473 and S. 2607 to establish recreation fee authority and, in particular, allow for the reinvestment of the

majority of those fees into facilities and services that enhance the visitor experience.

Congress established recreation fee authority in 1965 under the Land and Water

Conservation Fund Act, and more recently, in 1996, under the Recreational Fee

Demonstration (Fee Demo) program. In enacting these bills, Congress acknowledged

that the visitors to federal lands receive some benefits that do not directly accrue

to the public at large and that charging a modest fee to that population is both equitable and fair to the general taxpayer. Congress took that idea one step further

when establishing the Fee Demo program for the National Park Service (NPS), the

Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Fish and

Wildlife Service), and the U.S. Forest Service (Forest Service). During the 105th

Congress, a House Appropriations Committee Report noted that the Fee Demo program was developed in direct response to the federal agencies’ concern over their

growing backlog maintenance needs. Thus, the Fee Demo program allowed participating agencies to retain a majority of recreation fees at the site collected and reinvest those fees into enhancing visitor services. This authority was deliberately broad

and flexible to encourage agencies to experiment with their fee programs.

As the Committee is aware, our federal lands boast scenic vistas, breathtaking

landscapes, and unique natural wonders. On these lands, many patriotic symbols,

battlefields, memorials, historic homes, and many other types of sites tell the story

of America. Federal lands have provided Americans and visitors from around the

world special places for recreation, education, reflection and solace. The family vacation to these destinations is an American tradition.

We want to ensure that the federal lands continue to play this important role in

American life and culture. Fulfilling this mission requires that we maintain visitorserving facilities and services, preserve natural and historic resources, and enhance

visitor opportunities. Such efforts require an adequate and steady source of funding.

We would like to share some of our experiences and lessons learned through the

Fee Demo Program with you and offer several suggestions about the types of provisions that we believe would be important to include in any future recreation fee program. The agencies did experiment with fees during the demonstration phase. This

experience has provided them with important information about the type of fee program that will meet the intended goal of enhancing the visiting public’s enjoyment

of our federal lands. In addition to continual efforts to evaluate, study, and improve

fee programs within individual agencies, the agencies also have made tremendous

efforts to coordinate and share experiences among all the participating agencies.

To facilitate coordination and consistency among the agencies on recreation fee

policies, the agencies recently created an Interagency Recreation Fee Leadership

Council (Fee Council). The members of the Fee Council from the Department of the

Interior include four Assistant Secretaries, four Bureau Directors, and the Director

of Congressional and Legislative Affairs. The USDA is represented by the Under

Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, the Chief Forester for the Forest

Service, and the Director of Legislative Affairs for the Forest Service. As Assistant

Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget, I co-chair the Council along with

USDA’s Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Mark Rey.The

Fee Council is developing its first annual work plan, which tentatively includes coordinating project evaluation and expenditure guidelines and determining what

types of joint research projects may be necessary to assist in setting sensible recreation fee policies.

The agencies also worked together on the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program Interim Report to Congress, a comprehensive analysis of the Fee Demo Program sent to Congress in April 2002. This process, coupled with input from the Fee

Council, has provided an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate the progress of the

Fee Demo program. We would like to share with you today some of the achievements of the program, the lessons learned regarding our implementation of the proVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:03 Jan 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 J:\DOCS\84-415 SENERGY3 PsN: SENERGY3
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gram, and what we have discovered are the critical elements of a successful future

for the recreation fee program.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Consider first how the Department has worked with the public to ensure that the

Fee Demo program benefits recreationists, the federal lands visitors, and local communities. Efforts to seek out public input are consistent with Secretary Norton’s

‘‘Four C’s’’—Communication, Consultation, and Cooperation, all in the service of

Conservation. Given our experience with cooperative decisionmaking within the Fee

Demo program, we believe that any future fee program should foster collaborative

opportunities.

At the South Fork of the Snake River Pilot Fee Project, a joint partnership of the

BLM, the Forest Service, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and the counties of

Bonneville, Madison, and Jefferson, Fee Demo money was used to replace non-functional toilets, expand and elevate the parking lot, and make the facility accessible

to individuals with disabilities at Menan Boat Access. A working group at this site,

composed of representatives of the agencies and other stakeholders, allocates revenues and produces a public report illustrating projects and expenditures. The report

is distributed to previous season pass holders, businesses throughout the area, and

staff. Completed projects are listed on the back of annual season passes and a news

release is issued. Throughout the year participating agencies seek input from the

public, outfitters and guides, and fishing clubs on what projects to fund with the

collected fees.

The BLM Eagle Lake Field Office in California entered into a cooperative venture

with a local bus company to provide, for a small fee, shuttle service to bring bikes

and riders back to their vehicles. On board the shuttle is an interpreter who explains resource features and sites of interest along the route. The BLM has established a strong link with the community because local residents frequently ride the

shuttle. This shuttle supports the local economy through the venture with the local

bus company and by increasing tourism in the rural area.

At Cedar Mesa, Utah, the BLM has used Fee Demo funds to provide support for

volunteers and seasonal staff who supervise the various recreation improvement

projects. The BLM has created a strong working relationship with the Grand Canyon Private Boaters Association to aid in San Juan River clean-up, which has resulted in removal of almost two tons of trash from the river and its banks over the

last two years. In addition, the BLM worked with three separate service groups—

the Wilderness Volunteers, the Sierra Club, and the American Hiking Association—

to mitigate trail damage created by early season flooding.

At the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, the Fish and Wildlife Service has established a cooperative agreement with the City of Virginia Beach to provide environmental education programming for 34 summer youth camps, serving more than

2,000 young recreationists.

At Mount Rainier National Park, the high volume of use at campground facilities

had worn down interpretive facilities, contributed to visitor health and safety problems, and resulted in the general feeling of dissatisfaction of campground users. In

Cougar Rock campground, the 125-seat amphitheater was too small to accommodate

current visitation and was determined to be located too close to geo-hazards. Fee

demo funds were used to relocate the facility and increase seating capacity to 300.

Fee demo funds also were used to ensure that the White River Campground restroom facilities could meet peak-season demand.

LESSONS LEARNED AND GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Through the fee program, agencies have been able to fund many important visitor

projects. At the same time, the Department also has learned about ways to improve

the fee program. Some concerns expressed about the program include:

• Recreation fees are not consistent across sites with similar features and facilities;

• The distinction between recreation fees charged for ‘‘entrance’’ and those

charged for ‘‘use’’ is unclear;

• Use of recreation fees for improvements to facilities and services often is not

apparent to the visiting public;

• The current pass system is confusing to the public;

• Recreation fees should not be charged in areas with little or no improvements

aimed at enhancing the visitor experience;

• Visitors should not be ‘‘nickel and dimed’’ through too many separate recreation

fee charges.

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In response to the criticisms received, the Fee Council has identified seven guiding principles that address these and other concerns and are critical to a successful

fee program. Any long-term fee program should be beneficial to the visiting public,

fair and equitable, efficient, consistent, collaborative, convenient, and accountable.

1. Beneficial to the Visiting Public

The first guiding principle is that the ultimate goal of a fee program must be to

benefit the visiting public by enhancing the resources, facilities, and programs utilized by those paying the fees. A majority of fee revenue should be kept at the site

where the fee is collected and fees should help provide the sites with adequate resources to enhance and address unmet visitor service needs, reduce the backlog of

deferred maintenance, and restore and enhance impacted or endangered resources.

The success of a fee program lies in the delivery of these services, not merely in

revenue generation.

2. Fair and Equitable

Fees also should be fair and equitable—they should be affordable for all members

of the public and not significantly affect visitation. Fees should be based on coherent

framework that considers the relationship between who pays and who benefits from

the services provided by a recreation program.

3. Efficient

The third guiding principle is that fees should be collected and administered in

a cost efficient, enforceable, and business-like manner.

4. Consistent

The fourth guiding principle is that a recreation fee system should, where possible, be consistent. Visitors should expect a similar fee for similar activities, facilities, and services across agencies and in a given geographic area. The costs and benefits associated with a fee or pass should be clearly illustrated and easily understood

by the visiting public.

5. Collaborative

As you know, collaboration lies at the center of Secretary Norton’s ‘‘Four C’s’’—

Communication, Consultation, and Cooperation, all in the service of Conservation.

Consistent with this philosophy is the notion that input from local communities,

constituencies and other stakeholders is vitally important in establishing reasonable

fees. Wherever possible or appropriate, agencies should coordinate fees with private

entities, local, state, and other federal agencies to minimize overlapping costs and

simplify fees for the visiting public.

6. Convenient

Fees should be convenient to pay and passes easy to obtain. A variety of payment

and location options (including by credit card, internet, automated fee machines,

and vendor sales) should be made available as appropriate and feasible.

7. Accountable

Finally, agencies should be accountable to the public and Congress. Agencies

should collect data and publish annually public documentation showing how the fee

program is administered. Agencies should evaluate fee programs to consider cost of

collection, adherence to policy, fiscal safeguards, how well they achieve organizational, site, or community goals, and how fee revenues have been spent to enhance

the visitor experience.

THE FUTURE OF THE RECREATION FEE PROGRAM

Through our experience with the Fee Demo program, we now have the knowledge

and tools to establish a successful fee program. Delay could result in a lost opportunity to implement a more productive, streamlined recreation fee system for the

future designed to enhance the visitor’s experience. The Department is ready for

that challenge.

In addition to the efforts of the individual agencies and the Fee Council, we have

a few suggestions on legislative provisions that would adhere to the guiding principles and address some of the criticisms levied at the program.

1. The Recreation Fee Program Should Be An Interagency One

We have found that the visiting public does not distinguish between lands managed by different federal agencies. Enhancing coordination between agencies is extraordinarily important in creating a sensible and efficient fee program with seamVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:03 Jan 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 J:\DOCS\84-415 SENERGY3 PsN: SENERGY3
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less services that is well-understood by the public. For these reasons, we are willing

and ready to take on the challenges of an interagency program.

Although the nature of some agencies makes the collection of fees easier than for

others, we believe that the relevant policy question of whether recreation fee authority should be given to an agency is whether the visiting public would benefit from

enhanced recreation facilities and other visitor services that would result from such

fees being charged. For example, the Bureau of Reclamation’s 288 lakes accommodate 90 million visits a year. Just as in the case with other agencies, their visitors

could benefit from improvements to facilities and services that could not otherwise

be accomplished without recreation fee authority. As noted above, the BLM, the

Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Forest Service have utilized their fees in creative

and productive ways to enhance the visitor experience. Other agencies outside the

Department of the Interior and USDA may also benefit from such a program.

2. An Interagency National Pass Should Be Established

For reasons that include those above, we also should explore the creation of a new

interagency national pass that would provide visitors with a convenient and economical way to enjoy recreation on federal lands while at the same time, serve to

educate the American public about their federal lands and available recreational opportunities. We believe that the National Park Passport developed by Mr. Thomas

a few years ago is an excellent model for such a program, and we would like to expand on its successes—the image competition as well as the modern marketing, and

innovative, administration provisions. Therefore, we propose creating a new annual

interagency pass would expand the National Parks Passport to include all participating agencies and would consolidate the Golden Passes established under the

Land and Water Conservation Act. By consolidating these passes, the interagency

pass would decrease visitor confusion about passes and shift the emphasis to recreation opportunities on our federal lands rather than an agency-centric view. We envision the interagency pass would include new and expanded standard benefits that

are consistent across agencies and more inclusive than benefits under the Golden

Eagle Pass; we envision the pass to be provided to seniors at steep discounts and

to the disabled community free of charge; and we envision the pass retaining the

look and program qualities of the National Park Passport. The distribution formula

of pass revenues would be data-driven, established, and periodically reevaluated

through the Fee Council. We look forward to working with the Committee to determine the appropriate formulas.

3. An Improved System of Fees to Replace Outdated ‘‘Entrance’’ and ‘‘Use’’ Fees

Should Be Created

Each of the agencies have molded and shaped the LWCF definitions of ‘‘entrance’’

and ‘‘use’’ fees differently over the last several decades, thereby blurring the distinction between these fees and affecting how the Golden passes are used. The lack of

consistency between and within agencies has led to visitor confusion and frustration.

For this reason, we propose creating a new system of fees that will have consistent

application across all agencies.

Instead of an ‘‘entrance’’ fee, agencies would be authorized to charge a ‘‘basic

recreation’’ fee only at designated units or areas where a substantial investment has

been made by the agency to enhance the visitor experience at that location. Under

this system, restrictions would be put in place to ensure that the visiting public

would not be charged if the agency is not making a certain level of investment in

visitor services. All passes established would cover the basic recreation fee at all

sites. Thus, basic recreation activities that were once inappropriately charged a

‘‘use’’ fee would now be covered by the passes.

While the Department would like to make as many efforts as possible to streamline the recreation fee system, fairness and equity concerns argue against the elimination of all layering of fees. The notion behind charging a fee beyond the basic

recreation fee is that certain recreation activities require additional attention by

agency staff or involve costs that should not be borne by the general public through

taxpayer funds or by the rest of the visiting public through the basic recreation fee.

The system must balance fairness and equity principles by carefully considering the

relationship between who pays and who benefits.

Instead of a ‘‘use’’ fee, as now charged, we suggest that a fee for enhanced services, activities, and facilities be charged as an ‘‘expanded recreation’’ fee. The types

of activities for which an expanded recreation fee may be charged will, to the extent

possible, be consistent across agencies. Specific prohibitions and guidance will safeguard against blurring the two categories of fees to ensure that: 1) the system is

understandable to the public; 2) the public is not ‘‘double charged’’ when enjoying

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the primary attraction of the site; and 3) passes, which are proposed to cover the

basic recreation fees, retain full value.

4. Better Reporting on the Use of Fee Revenues Should Be Established

The purpose of the recreation fee program is to improve the visitor’s recreation

experience. Visitor acceptance of fees depends upon: 1) whether improvements to the

site are visible to them and, 2) whether a majority of the fee revenues stay at the

site visited. For this reason, the Department would like to develop a meaningful reporting requirement to Congress to ensure that fee revenues are used efficiently and

effectively for the benefit of the visiting public. We also are making efforts to better

demonstrate, on site, to the visiting public how and where their recreation fees are

being spent and to explore more creative ways to seek public input on visitor

projects that fee revenues should fund.

5. Authority to Establish Agency Site-Specific and Regional Multi-entity Passes

Should Be Provided

A well-structured, appropriately priced regional multi-entity pass can provide certain types of visitors with a value option as well as provide important opportunities

for the federal government to partner with state and private entities to promote

tourism and improve the experience of their shared visitors. Both the site-specific

and regional multi-entity passes also could provide regular visitors, often residents

of nearby communities, with convenient and economical pass alternatives.

These concepts result from a great deal of analysis and discussion within the Department and with the Department of Agriculture through the Fee Council. We believe these concepts would positively contribute to any legislation that moves forward on recreation fee authority. We look forward to working with the Committee

and our interagency partners to further discuss and explore these ideas.

I would like to take this opportunity to announce that, in support of the President’s Healthier U.S. Initiative, the National Park Service will waive all entrance

fees on June 22-23, 2002. The National Parks and all our federal lands provide an

important context on which Americans are seeking to lead healthier lives. We hope

you will join us this weekend at your nearest National Park.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I would be pleased to answer any

questions you or other members of the subcommittee may have.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. Rey, why do you not go right ahead.

STATEMENT OF MARK REY, UNDER SECRETARY FOR NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, DEPARTMENT OF

AGRICULTURE

Mr. REY. Thank you. I am here today to present the Department’s views on S. 2607 and S. 2473. In addition, I would like to

discuss with you the results of the Forest Service’s implementation

of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program.

Assistant Secretary Scarlett has provided you testimony on the

interagency coordination and accomplishments that I will not repeat. They are in her statement for the record. I will only add my

agreement with her testimony and my hope that the legislative

framework that you may provide us will further the interagency cooperation we strive for in delivering a seamless Federal lands

recreation program.

The Department supports S. 2607 with the modifications that Assistant Secretary Scarlett indicated and that have been provided to

your staff.

The Department would also support S. 2473 with the hope that

Congress would include in the bill authority for the Forest Service

along with the Interior agencies that have recreation responsibilities to charge and retain recreation use fees.

More detailed views are included in my statement for the record

on both measures.

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Let me talk a little bit about our experience with the Recreation

Fee Demonstration Program. That program has provided a tremendous opportunity for Forest Service managers to meet the expectations of recreation visitors to the national forests. The authority for

the Fee Demonstration Program was enacted in 1996 to demonstrate the feasibility of user-generated cost recovery for the operation and maintenance of recreation areas or sites on Federal

lands. Through fiscal year 2001, nearly $106 million in new funding has been generated above congressional appropriations to enhance the visitor experience at 87 national forest projects across

the United States. Program funds are making a crucial difference

in providing quality recreation services, reducing the maintenance

backlog, enhancing facilities, enhancing safety and security, and

conserving natural resources.

With the authorization of a long-term recreation fee retention

program, the Forest Service, along with the Interior agencies with

which we work, can build further on these successes. Improvements in payment convenience, accountability, market analysis and

research, partnerships with interested groups, interagency coordination, and consistency in program delivery will be possible with

long-term authorization.

We believe the important elements of long-term recreation fee

authority should include: first, providing enough flexibility in the

program to meet the unique needs of visitors with a solid framework for consistency among agencies involved in the program; second, retaining all fees without offset for direct reinvestment into

recreation sites, facilities, and services to benefit visitors; third, allowing for cooperative efforts with other entities, particularly Federal, State, tribal, local and private entities, in sharing pass programs, fees and revenues; fourth, allowing for retention of recreation special use permit fees to provide additional enhancements;

and fifth, providing enforcement capability for fair and equitable

program implementation.

The Visit Idaho Playgrounds pass is just one example of cooperative efforts to benefit visitors. This annual pass is valid at over 100

recreation sites operated throughout Idaho by the Forest Service,

the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, the

National Park Service, and the Idaho Department of Parks. Passes

are available for purchase via a web site or by a toll-free telephone

number for visitor convenience. Revenues are shared according to

a formula developed for the business plan and revenues are directed back to the recreation sites for improvements in facilities

and services.

Additional examples of the benefits to visitors made possible by

the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program include: about $23 million to reduce backlog maintenance and improve health and safety

through repair and replacement of inadequate facilities; over $11

million for new and improved interpretive and informational materials and services such as signs, brochures, campfire talks; about

$4 million for habitat enhancement and resource preservation such

as improvements for wildlife viewing and fishing, erosion control

devices, and historic building restoration; about $3 million for law

enforcement to enhance the safety and security of all users; over

$8 million for facility enhancements such as new trails, new campVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:03 Jan 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 J:\DOCS\84-415 SENERGY3 PsN: SENERGY3
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sites, and accessibility for the disabled; and about $28 million for

annual operations, including visitor services, litter removal, water

sampling, supplies, and services such as reserved permits, camping

reservations, and heritage expeditions.

Initiation of fees has clearly stirred some controversy and generated media interest. The Forest Service has made a number of

changes to projects based on public comments, including consolidating fees, providing better information on expenditures, and conducting market studies prior to implementation.

In fact, in response to the concerns we have heard, we have developed a number of principles to guide our implementation of the

Fee Demonstration Program through the remaining years of its

current authorization. These principles are included in my statement for the record and are reflected, in pertinent part, on the

principles that we developed together with the Department of the

Interior in trying to evaluate what would make a good permanent

fee authorization program.

In addition, we have identified sites and services where no fees

should be charged. For example, we would not charge a fee for general access to national forests or national grasslands. We would not

charge a fee for undesignated parking along roadways, for overlooks, or for scenic pullouts. We would not charge a fee for dispersed recreation areas with low or no expenditures in facilities or

services, and we would not charge a fee for general information

services and visitor centers.

I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, and the other

members of the committee and our agency partners to implement

a permanent fee program. This concludes my statement, and I

would be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rey follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARK REY, UNDER SECRETARY OF RESOURCES AND

ENVIRONMENT, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to

appear before you today. I am Mark Rey, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural

Resources and Environment. I am here today to present the Department’s views on

two bills, S. 2607, the Federal Lands Recreation Fee Authority Act, and S. 2473,

the Recreational Fee Authority Act of 2002. In addition, I would like to discuss with

you the results of the Forest Service’s implementation of the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program that is authorized by section 315 of Public Law 104-134.

Assistant Secretary, Lynn Scarlett, who co-chairs the Interagency Recreation Fee

Leadership Council with me, has provided testimony on interagency coordination

and accomplishments that I need not repeat. I will only add my agreement with her

testimony and my hope that the legislative framework you provide will further the

interagency cooperation we strive for in delivering a seamless Federal lands recreation program.

The Department supports S. 2607. The Department also would support S. 2473

if Congress were willing to include in the bill authority for the Forest Service, along

with Interior agencies that have recreation responsibilities, to charge and retain

recreation use fees.

S. 2607

S. 2607 authorizes the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture

to collect recreation fees at units or areas of Federal lands, such as national parks,

national recreation areas, and national monuments. In addition, the Secretaries are

authorized to collect fees at other areas if they are managed primarily for recreation

purposes and contains at least one major recreation attraction; have had substantial

Federal investments; and if fees can be efficiently collected at public access points.

The bill authorizes the collection of recreation use fees for specialized recreation

17

sites, facilities, equipment, or services such as campgrounds, boat launches, and reservation services and authorizes the collection of special recreation permit fees for

groups and commercial activities.

S. 2607 contains language similar to the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act

that authorizes the sale of Golden Eagle, Golden Age, and Golden Access Passports.

This bill also retains authority for the Secretary of the Interior to sell the National

Parks Passport.

S. 2607 authorizes the Secretaries to retain and spend 80 percent of the fees collected at the unit or area at which they were collected for resource preservation,

backlogged repair, maintenance, and other specified uses. The remaining 20 percent

is available for expenditure at other high priority agency recreation sites.

The Department supports S. 2607 and would like to work with the Committee on

language to clarify the application of recreation use fees and to correct certain conforming amendments.

S. 2473

S. 2473 authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to charge and retain fees for admission and use of units and areas administered by the National Park Service for

the purposes of repair, maintenance, interpretation, resource preservation, and

other similar uses.

The Department would like to work with Mr. Thomas to amend the bill to include

authority for the Forest Service, along with Interior agencies that have recreation

responsibilities, to charge and retain fees. This change would permit the agencies

to continue successful implementation of the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program authorized by section 315 of Public 104-134.

RECREATIONAL FEE DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM

The Recreational Fee Demonstration Program has provided a tremendous opportunity for Forest Service managers to meet the expectations of recreation visitors

to the national forests. The authority for the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program was enacted in 1996 to ‘‘demonstrate the feasibility of user-generated cost recovery for the operation and maintenance of recreation areas or sites’’ on Federal

lands. Through fiscal year 2001, nearly $106 million in new funding have been generated above Congressional appropriations to enhance the visitor experience at 87

national forest projects across the United States. Program funds are making a crucial difference in providing quality recreation services, reducing maintenance backlog, enhancing facilities, enhancing safety and security, and conserving natural resources. With authorization of a long-term recreation fee retention program, the Forest

Service, along with the Interior agencies with which we work, can build further on

its successes. Improvements in payment convenience, accountability, market analysis and research, partnerships, interagency coordination, and consistency in program delivery will be possible with long-term authorization.

Important elements of long-term recreation fee authority would include: providing

enough flexibility in the program to meet the unique needs of visitors, yet a solid

framework for consistency among agencies in program delivery; retaining all the

fees without offset for direct reinvestment into recreation sites, facilities, and services to benefit visitors; allowing for cooperative efforts with other entities (federal,

state, tribal, local, and private) in sharing pass programs, fees, and revenues; allowing for retention of recreation special use permit fees to provide additional enhancements; and providing enforcement capability for fair and equitable program implementation.

The Visit Idaho Playgrounds pass is just one example of cooperative efforts to benefit visitors. This annual pass is valid at over 100 recreation sites throughout Idaho

operated by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, and Idaho Department of Parks. Passes are available

for purchase via a website or by a toll-free telephone number for visitor convenience.

Revenues are shared according to a formula developed for the business plan, and

revenues are directed back to the recreation sites for improvements in facilities and

services.

Additional examples of the benefits to visitors made possible by the Recreational

Fee Demonstration Program include:

• About $23 million to reduce backlog maintenance and improve health and safety through repair and/or replacement of inadequate toilets, picnic tables, building roofs, water and sewer lines, trails, and other facilities. Examples include

maintenance of 940 miles of trails in Oregon and Washington; repair or replacement of four toilets, 300 shade ramadas, 25 picnic tables, and 50 fire ring/grills

18

at Roosevelt Lake in Arizona; and repair of a sewer line at Sitting Bull Falls

in New Mexico.

• Over $11 million for new and improved interpretive and informational materials and services, such as signs, brochures, campfire talks, and visitor center

staffing. Visitor centers at Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument in

Washington operated for longer hours with additional interpretive talks than

otherwise possible; Evans Notch Visitor Center in New Hampshire contacted

34,000 visitors and provided numerous children’s programs; El Portal Visitor

Center in Puerto Rico reached some 8,400 visitors through the ‘‘Rent-A-Ranger’’

and ‘‘Forest Adventure’’ programs; and over 250,000 visitors to Palatki Ruins

in Sedona, Arizona enjoyed interpretive talks.

• About $4 million for habitat enhancement and resource preservation such as

improvements for wildlife viewing and fishing, erosion control devices, and historic building restoration. The Pack Creek bear viewing platform in Alaska allowed more than 1,400 visitors to safely view brown bear. Historic cabins

throughout Arizona and New Mexico were rehabilitated for public rental.

• $3 million for law enforcement to enhance the safety and security of all users,

including 157,368 additional visitor contacts, 2030 public ‘‘emergency assists’’,

and extinguishing 4795 abandoned campfires in southern California. At Canyon

Creek in Colorado, visitor contact increased 80 percent;

• Over $8 million for facility enhancements such as new trails, new campsites,

and accessibility for the disabled. Some examples include improved wheelchair

accessibility at 6 restrooms, 3 boat ramps, 2 fishing piers, and a beach on the

Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, Wisconsin, and new restrooms and interpretive shelter at Keown Falls, Georgia;

• About $28 million for annual operation including visitor services, litter removal,

toilet pumping, water sampling, supplies, and services such as reserved permits,

camping reservations, and heritage expeditions. One ton of refuse and abandoned materials were removed from wilderness areas in Idaho and Montana;

Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota maintained 660 wilderness campsites and 333 miles of trails; the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania increased visitor contacts at boat launches and increased recreation site maintenance; and in numerous additional ways throughout the nation, National Forest

visitors enjoyed enhanced services.

Initiation of fees has stirred some controversy and generated media interest. The

Forest Service has made a number of changes to projects based on public comment,

including consolidating fees, providing better information on expenditures, working

with other agencies, conducting market studies prior to implementation, and continuing to listen, learn, and change.

In fact, in response to concerns we have heard, we have developed principles to

guide our implementation of the demonstration program through the remaining

years of its current authorization. These principles include the following:

• A seamless fee program across agencies that is designed for visitor convenience;

• Fees are part of a larger financial plan for recreation that includes appropriations, volunteers, partnerships, and interagency cooperation;

• Each national forest and grassland will continue to provide areas where a variety of outdoor recreation opportunities are available free of charge;

• Fee revenues are retained at the site where they are collected to provide desirable and visible benefits to the visitor;

• Program implementation will be based on consistent criteria rather than

through a set number of sites;

• Communities of place and interest are consulted on decisions and informed on

how the revenues are invested.

In addition we have considered the types of sites and services where no fees would

be charged. We would not charge a fee for general access to National Forests or

Grasslands. We would not charge a fee for undesignated parking along roadways,

for overlooks, or for scenic pullouts. We would not charge a fee for dispersed recreation areas with low or no expenditures in facilities or services. We would not

charge a fee for general information services and centers.

I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, other members of the Committee, and our interagency partners to implement a permanent fee program. This concludes my statement. I would be glad to answer any questions that you may have.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you all very much.

Let me start by asking each of you about this issue of affordability of these fees by the general public. I think you both make

19

the case that fees need to be set at a level that does not discourage

any of the public from using our public lands, that that is a primary goal. How do we know that that is the case? If we set a fee,

how do you determine that that fee is not discouraging people from

coming to that recreational area or, if they come and pay it the

first time, that it is not a reason why they will not come back?

Secretary Scarlett.

Ms. SCARLETT. Senator, we have a variety of measures by which

we try to make that determination and assessment. First, at the

national parks and Bureau of Land Management and Fish and

Wildlife Service locations, we do surveying of all of those who attend the facilities and ask the question whether the fees are too

high, too low, whether they would come back, whether they are

supportive of them. The response rate to those, in terms of positive

response, runs between about 84 percent and 90 percent, in terms

of the fee level, as well as the uses of the fees.

In addition, we use an administrative process to set the fees. It

varies slightly from one agency to the other, but we do some comparability analysis with other locations and other kinds of private

and other fee-charging areas to assess comparability and make

sure that we are appropriately priced. Then, of course, we also

have a lot of public engagement. We do not change fees without appropriate discussion, a plan in place, a communication effort, and

a two-way communication with the public. So, we are acutely cognizant of that problem.

I should conclude with one final point. We also track to see

whether the fees have any impact on attendance, and one of our

abiding principles is that whatever the fee is, it should not adversely affect attendance. So, we have tracked that and we have

been able to show that the fee, when charged, does not result in

a drop in attendance. So, we are very carefully monitoring that

across our bureaus.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rey, did you have anything to add?

Mr. REY. Yes. In our case, each of our 87 national forest rec fee

demo sites is preceded by a business analysis, including a civil

rights impact analysis. The survey work we have done is providing

results comparable to the Department of the Interior’s in terms of

visitor acceptance of the fees and the fee amounts.

Additionally, in many areas, we publicize free days throughout

the year, as well as work with local social service agencies to distribute fee passes when we know we are serving a significant cross

section of low income or disadvantaged populations.

The CHAIRMAN. I think both of you mentioned this. Mr. Rey, you

mentioned it more specifically perhaps. Are there some pilot

projects, since this has been a fee demonstration program, that you

tried that clearly were mistakes and we clearly should not continue

in or permit them in any legislation that we enact in this area?

Mr. REY. I think a couple of things we have learned from the

demonstration program are first, that the public resistance to multiple fees crossing among agency jurisdictions is perhaps the most

prominent outcry of opposition that we have heard. With regard to

national forest sites specifically, we have heard, with very few exceptions, that a general access fee is highly resisted by the public

for many of the reasons that Senator Thomas indicated. I think

20

those are probably the two biggest lessons that we took away from

our experimentation with the program.

The CHAIRMAN. One of the concerns that I think people have had

about charging fees and particularly charging fees which we intend

to be kept at the local level is that it builds in an incentive for local

land managers to jack up fees and look for new opportunities to impose fees. Are there safeguards against that happening? Is there a

way that you ensure we do not have such an adverse incentive

here, that a particular location sort of prices itself out of the

public’s reach?

Mr. REY. I think that the amount of opposition that generates is

the principal safeguard. We hear very quickly and very loudly from

the public when they suspect that they are being charged too much

for something or being charged for something where the service

that is being delivered is out of line with the amount that is being

charged.

I also think that the limitation on the amount that could be

spent for development in any one area that is included in the current recreation fee demonstration legislation is a safeguard against

a forest supervisor deciding that he is going to build a Taj Mahal

or Disneyland on his particular national forest.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you have any thought on that, Ms. Scarlett?

Ms. SCARLETT. Some of the measures that I discussed, as it relates to concern about access by all Americans, apply in this instance too. We do develop business plans before moving forward

with any fee changes and they must be approved administratively

beyond the individual unit. So, the decision does not reside solely

within that unit, and that provides a certain safeguard.

In addition, as Mr. Rey said, we are constantly engaging in surveys and public input and advance notice before any fees or fee

changes are implemented to ensure that we get that feedback and

keep the fees in line.

I should say also with respect to fees, in the business plan discussion, one of the elements we look at is what would be the impact on visitorship. So, that again is a constraining factor. If you

raise that fee to a point where you are going to adversely affect

visitors, then that would result in the non-approval of that proposed increase.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Campbell.

Senator CAMPBELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Maybe I missed something when I stepped out of the room for

a bit. I am wondering about how we police this. Every piece of legislation has some form of enforcement mechanism. From where I

live in southwest Colorado near Durango—we have a little ranch

there—within 50 miles in literally every direction, certainly east

and north and west, maybe not south, there are probably between

10 and 15 entrances into the forest. There are little roads. There

will be a little sign there saying, entrance to San Juan National

Forest or Un Compadre or something. How do you intend to monitor all those places where people can go in the forest?

Mr. REY. We do not.

Senator CAMPBELL. You do not. So, do you do it on the honor system or something?

21

Mr. REY. We do not propose an entrance fee for the national forests. What we propose is a basic use fee for sites which have a reasonable amount of development.

Senator CAMPBELL. That means if somebody wanted to go in with

his snow mobile or something, there is no fee for that?

Mr. REY. That is correct.

Senator CAMPBELL. No fee for any passive things like taking pictures or whatever. No fee for that, only for something active like

cutting a Christmas tree before Christmas.

Mr. REY. There is a fee for that.

Senator CAMPBELL. There is already a fee. They have got to get

a permit for that.

Mr. REY. Now, as far as snow mobile use is concerned, there are

some national forests where we have developed snow mobile trails,

and the amount of investment in those trails could be an area

where we not only have justified an investment to provide a quality

user experience, but we also have a means of monitoring access because there are specific trail heads and parking lots. But there are

also a lot of areas where snow mobile use is allowed in a crosscountry fashion. We would not be trying to charge a fee for those.

Senator CAMPBELL. Well, then what would you define as use? An

improved facility where you would stay for a period of time?

Mr. REY. I define it slightly more broadly, but that would certainly be one kind of facility that would qualify for a fee in our proposal. I think where we are providing an additional benefit to a

recreational visitor that inures as a result of a hard investment in

infrastructure, that is the kind of place where we would be talking

about a basic recreation fee.

Senator CAMPBELL. Okay, and maybe one last question. A couple

of times in the last 10-15 years, we have dealt with increased fees

with parks and other facilities. There has been at least concern

from some people that if we increase fees, on the one hand, you increase the fees to improve the facilities. On the other hand, some

people are saying, if you charge the fees, what will happen is Congress will back out of an obligation of appropriating the amount of

money that is needed to maintain and upgrade the facilities. Do

you see any danger of that?

Mr. REY. Well, that is something we would hope you would not

do if you pass the fee legislation.

Senator CAMPBELL. I would too, but I know it has been a concern

that we would not accept our responsibility. Of course, we do not

now, that is why we have got such a backlog, unfortunately, of purchasing and maintaining public lands.

Mr. REY. I suppose that is the answer to the quandary. The reason we are here talking about fees is that the backlog does exist.

Senator CAMPBELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator Akaka.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Scarlett, I was talking about invasive species. The delay of

even 1 year can make a big difference in the vegetation inside our

national parks. Historically there has been resistance to spending

park fees on projects outside park boundaries due to fears that the

practice might lead to spending for non-park priorities.

22

However, on Maui, we have an imminent threat to park resources, and as I mentioned, Miconia is encroaching from outside

the park into the park. We have responsible State and local partners willing to work with the Park Service to ensure that funds are

spent on park priorities.

My question to you is what are your recommendations for using

park resources such as recreational fees to help protect parks

against an imminent threat lying just outside its boundaries?

Ms. SCARLETT. Thank you, Senator. Let me give a two-pronged

response to that. We would be very interested in working with you

and working with the Senate in exploring the opportunity in general for some of the kinds of investments that you describe. It is

my understanding that the National Park Service, in contrast to

the Bureau of Land Management and Fish and Wildlife Service, actually does not currently have the authority to expend any monies,

as opposed to recreation fee monies, outside of the park boundaries.

As it relates to the recreation fee specifically, our view is that

those fees need to be expended on visitor enhancing opportunities

within the units where the fees are charged. However, we certainly

would be interested in exploring whether other opportunities would

be available for the kind of investment you are talking about and,

in fact, have proposed in our 2003 budget a cooperative conservation initiative, the very idea of which, at its centerpiece, would be

to do that sort of thing. So, we would look forward to working with

you on that.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for that.

You both have been talking about plans. Mr. Rey, what suggestions or plans does the agency have for streamlining the processes

that are being used now on these fees?

Mr. REY. I think we have done a pretty good job in the years that

we have used the Fee Demonstration Program in streamlining

processes. In the last full year of implementation, we were down

to only 14 percent of the money actually being used to administer

the program, the remaining 86 percent for use on the recreation

sites.

I think one of the most important proposals for streamlining the

processes which will assist not only the public, but the agencies as

well, is a consistent program of fee administration across all Federal agency ownerships. I think by combining our efforts, we are

going to bring additional administrative efficiencies out of the administration of the program beyond what we have experienced so

far.

Additionally, I think that with a longer-term authorization with

the certainty that the program is not subject to the vagaries of the

appropriations debate each year, you will see us being able to implement some investments that will reduce cost of implementing

the program as well.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. Thank you very much,

Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator Thomas.

Senator THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

23

First of all, I want to thank both of you and the agencies that

you are with because I think you have done a lot of work on this

demonstration aspect of it and we can learn from that certainly.

We need to have a more efficient way to administer. I guess that

is the main reason I started out with parks because parks, just by

their nature, you collect the fee. Forests, on the other hand, and

particularly BLM—it is terribly difficult to do that. Mark, you mentioned 14 percent. I think there is some evidence some collection

has been as much as high as 35 percent of collection fees were used

to collect. And that is too high.

Mr. REY. That is clearly too high.

Senator THOMAS. We certainly, I do not think, can have it that

way.

And you have already suggested this broad application has to be

narrowed to some suitable sites. We need clear definitions and criteria for those sites, which we have not had in the past.

I am a little concerned. I see some of BLM’s here, for example,

where the revenues in the year were $1,000. Now, when you take

out the cost of that, is that worth doing? Lynn?

Ms. SCARLETT. Senator, we share your concern on the efficiency

and, of course, early on some of our cost of collection was high relative to the overall portion. We right now have that down not quite

as low as the Forest Service, but averaging about 20 percent, 21

percent. There are some sites where the amount generated relative

to the cost remains high, and we are going back and actually working on policy guidance and administration guidance to address that

question.

Senator THOMAS. Let me ask you this. Yosemite, I am told, had

97 employees dedicated to fee collection, supervised by a GS-12 and

a GS-11. Now, is there not a way to collect fees when you have a

gate that people have to go through that is a little less expensive

than that?

Ms. SCARLETT. We think there is. We think there are substantial

improvements. As I noted, while on average we are now at about

21 percent cost of collection relative to overall, there are some sites

that go as high as 60-65 percent, and clearly that is not satisfactory. So, we would like to go back to the drawing boards and make

those improvements.

I should affirm what Mark Rey said which is we think that an

extended authorization would actually help us in that effort because it would allow us to make some investments in automation

and other practices that are more difficult to do when we are on

a 1-by-1-year basis.

Senator THOMAS. Well, when you do this—of course, you know

this, but I have to say it—you have to accept the responsibility for

oversight and accountability on this thing. Quite frankly, quite

often the top layers of these agencies are not doing that, and your

regional people and so on. So, that is something you have to do.

We have advertised that 80 percent of the fees go back to where

they are collected, and that has not always been the case. You cannot continue to say that, falsely, 80 percent is going there when it

is not.

Ms. SCARLETT. Yes. There are a couple of things that we are trying to do to improve that accountability and the actual investment

24

back into the sites where the investment is made. One, in terms

of cost accounting and cost management, we are moving towards

a very transparent system where the actual breakdown of the revenues collected and how specifically they are expended will be made

available on a regular and very transparent basis. We think that

will provide not only better information to the public, but better

discipline to those actually implementing the program. And then

we are going back and reviewing some of the very problems you

identified.

Senator THOMAS. The Friends Group at Sequoia Kings Canyon

gives tours of the park and collects the fee under this program and

then the private organization keeps the fee. Is that the way you are

going to operate?

Ms. SCARLETT. That is not our general intent. I am not familiar

with that particular circumstance. I would have to look into what

they are doing and why they are doing it. In general, I would say,

according to the guidance that we are developing, we believe it is

very important that the fees go back to the investments in the visitor enhancing activities. The Sequoia incident I am not familiar

with.

Senator THOMAS. We all agree with going back there, but there

has been a slowness in the obligation of the funds. There are still

funds out there now that have been collected and they have not decided what to do with them. If visitors are going to see the impact

of their fee, there has to be some push to get that done.

Ms. SCARLETT. The good news is the obligation rates are dramatically improved. This past year, the National Park Service was

at about 92 percent obligation of the revenues generated in 2001.

At our Fish and Wildlife and BLM, it is 75 percent or above. You

are correct, however, historically that obligation rate was much

lower.

Some of that resulted from the early-on projects actually having

a substantial design and planning element, so it took a while to get

them up and running. We are now in catch-up and getting closer

to full obligation. Some of it, however, does require greater streamlining in that planning and development process which we have

undertaken.

Senator THOMAS. Well, as you know, I am very supportive of this

idea, but it is going to take management to do that, and we are

going to have to have clear criteria for where these sites are particularly, Mark, in the Forest Service. BLM, I think, is especially

so. We cannot just have the notion that you have to pay to go on

public lands because that is not what we are doing here, I hope.

Half of Wyoming is public lands, and they are not going to pay to

go there to look for an antelope. So, there has to be some real management on this.

I think we can work that out, and I am certainly looking forward

to working with the chairman. I think we can make this better for

visitors and help make these visitations more useful.

So, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. Rey, let me ask. You say at the end of your statement here

that ‘‘we would not charge a fee for general access to national forests or national grasslands. We would not charge a fee for undesigVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:03 Jan 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 J:\DOCS\84-415 SENERGY3 PsN: SENERGY3
25

nated parking along roadways, for overlooks, or for scenic pullouts.

We would not charge a fee for dispersed recreation areas with low

or no expenditures in facilities or services, and we would not

charge a fee for general information services and centers.’’ Is that

current policy? Are we safe in assuming that the Forest Service is

not charging fees for any of those at this time?

Mr. REY. With a few exceptions. Probably the most notable exception is the Adventure Pass that has been developed by the four

national forests that surround the Los Angeles basin and the

unique circumstances that exist there. The four national forests

that surround the Los Angeles basin provide roughly 76 percent of

the total amount of open space available for recreation for the residents of the Los Angeles basin. The canyons that are on the southand west-facing slopes of those forests are canyons that are within

a half an hour’s drive of downtown Los Angeles.

With a strong degree of local support, the forests there have developed an entry pass and have used the pass successfully not only

to improve recreation quality, but to demonstrably change the visitor use of those four national forests, essentially driving out Los

Angeles gangs and restoring family-centered recreation to Forest

Service campsites and other recreation facilities that were law enforcement problems prior to the initiation of the Adventure Pass.

So, that is sort of an exception to the general rule.

But for the most part, that exception aside, the things that I indicated that we would not charge fees for are things that we are

not charging fees for.

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Scarlett, let me ask you about how this

interagency program would work. At the current time, each of the

various land management agencies sets its own fee schedule and

then meets with others, to the extent that you have described here,

but there is no formal interagency program.

Would the authority of the individual land management agencies

to set their fees be given over to some interagency group? Is that

the way you envision it, or how much centralization of authority

would you anticipate as part of this?

Ms. SCARLETT. We would anticipate a kind of a two-tiered approach, if you will. Number one, under the interagency approach

that we are proposing, we would require or ask that the two Secretaries, respectively, of the Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture be given authority to work together to review fees and to establish common policies relating to those fees to

ensure that coordination.

On a second tier, we would also in a more——

The CHAIRMAN. They have that authority now, do they not? If

the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior decide over lunch this afternoon or this noon that they would like to

do this jointly, there is no prohibition against their doing it, is

there?

Ms. SCARLETT. There is no prohibition to my understanding. We

believe that it would be helpful to actually have that requirement

as part of the process to ensure in all instances the appropriate coordination and cooperation. In addition, that effort would be supplemented by the work of the Interagency Recreation Fee LeaderVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:03 Jan 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 J:\DOCS\84-415 SENERGY3 PsN: SENERGY3
26

ship Council that we discussed in terms of evaluating fees and

coming to some common guidelines and conclusions.

The CHAIRMAN. One example you give here is that the Bureau

of Reclamation might want to establish a fee structure. I gather

that there may be additional Federal agencies that you would anticipate this interagency program covering. Could you elaborate on

that some?

At the current time, the BLM, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the

Forest Service, and I guess the Park Service are the four agencies

that charge fees. Is that correct?

Ms. SCARLETT. Bureau of Reclamation also charges some fees for

its boating and related facilities at lakes and dams.

The CHAIRMAN. But as part of the creation of an interagency program, do you anticipate that additional agencies would be given the

authority to charge fees?

Ms. SCARLETT. We would like the interagency authority and coordination to be among the agencies that you mentioned, but also

to explicitly include the Bureau of Reclamation and also, of course,

our partners at the Department of Agriculture, the Forest Service.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Let me defer to Senator Thomas for any additional questions he

has.

Senator THOMAS. Do I understand that what you look forward to

is sort of a national pass that would cost $50, or whatever it costs,

and you use it everywhere? Is that kind of like the park pass we

have now?

Ms. SCARLETT. That is correct. We think that the National Park

Passport that actually occurred under your leadership has been tremendously popular and very successful also in terms of some of the

implementation of it, some of the efficiencies in its implementation.

One of the things that we learned from our citizenry that go to

these facilities is that for like facilities—that is, for Bureau of Land

Management, not open access kinds of lands, but for facilities that

have that same kind of enhanced investment in visitor-serving infrastructure—that they have equal access with the pass to all of

those facilities. And we think for convenience, for clarity, for ease

of implementation, having a single national interagency pass for

like facilities would be very attractive to the American public.

Senator THOMAS. There is one area that I think requires a little

consideration, and that is the gateway private facilities. If you use

these additional funds to create, for instance, camps within the

park that have all kinds of technical facilities, which we really

would like to have people use outside the park—I think that needs

to be part of the planning. Yosemite is one where we are trying

now to keep more and more activities outside of the park rather

than in the park. It would be a shame to use this money to create

a competitive situation that moved people in the park as opposed

to outside the gateway in certain parks. Does that make sense?

Ms. SCARLETT. I think it does. In fact, we would like to explore

those opportunities. There have been a couple of examples to date

in the fee demo program in which we have cooperated with local

providers of recreation services and created a kind of coordinated

program or activity, and we would be very interested in further exploring those opportunities.

27

Senator THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I do not think I have any more

questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, as we move ahead and try to refine this

legislation and combine our efforts, we will get back in touch with

you with additional questions. Thank you both very much. I think

it was a useful hearing.

[Whereupon, at 10:37 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

(29)

APPENDIX

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

[Due to the enormous amount of material received, only a representative sample of statements follow. Additional documents and

statements have been retained in committee files.]

Temple City, CA, June 17, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: I am vehemently opposed to recreation fees for the use

of America’s public land. I ask you to cancel the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program immediately. I also ask that such recreation fees on public lands NEVER be

made permanent. Our public lands, which belong to the People of the United States,

should be free of user fees, parking fees, and fees for basic access. Public funding,

which has been systematically and deliberately slashed over the past decade, must

be FULLY RESTORED to the land management agencies so that they can fulfill

both on-going and backlogged maintenance.

Please include this letter in the public record for the hearing on June 19, 2002.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

DEBORAH Y. NAKAMOTO.

Crawford, CO, June 18, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, Washington, DC.

Subject: Public Comment for the Record, Recreation Fee Hearing

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: Senate Bill 2607 seems to have been introduced on a

FAST-TRACK SCHEDULE TO AVOID PUBLIC SCRUTINY; and, with the intent

to make Fee Demo permanent.

While your bill on the surface seems to assure that specific activities or areas

would not have fees, the entire bill is vague, can be broadly interpreted, and has

no limit on the number of sites where fees can be charged. It is one big loophole.

An area or use that does not require fees can be redesignated to fall under the category of an area that would require fees, such as a national monument, scenic, or

recreation area. This is likely to happen with land that was once freely accessible

and now has become part of the newly designated national monuments, for example.

And, there is nothing to stop an area with, say, hiking trails or jeep roads from

being developed with some amenity, facility, or structure that would then require

or allow fees. In fact, it appears this is the intent of the bill to allow enormous flexibility of government to apply fees when, where, and how it wants to.

As for fee collection, it is stated that public access to areas be provided in such

a manner that entrance fees could be efficiently collected at centralized locations.

This would maximize revenue and make law enforcement easier. But does this also

mean areas might be fenced, or roads and trails closed to funnel us through a few

collection booths? Regarding multiple fees, it is stated that the Secretary of Agriculture will, to the extent possible, minimize them. So would we still be—not

nickeled and dimed to death—but dollared to death? Will we see growth in new fees

and increasing prices for established ones? Probably both.

It is also stated that recreation use fees may not be charged for general access

to an area, a visitor center, a scenic overlook, drinking fountains, restrooms, or undeveloped parking. But this plan to make public lands profit-driven and supposedly

self-sustaining means infrastructure could be built with tax dollars and then desVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:03 Jan 29, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 J:\DOCS\84-415 SENERGY3 PsN: SENERGY3
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ignated as an area which would require fees. Is there any doubt that a fee will be

added when special facilities ‘‘constructed with significant federal (read taxpayer)

dollars’’ are built in an area, when a trailhead already exists there or is added,

when an entrance fee must be paid to get to the ‘free’ visitor center location, when

a fee must be paid to access roads with ‘free’ scenic overlooks, when fees must be

paid for access to an area to use the ‘free’ drinking fountains and restrooms (such

as campgrounds), when fees must be paid for developed parking because roads and

pull-offs have ‘no parking’ signs? This is already going on in some states. It is not

my imagination at work.

Fees can be charged for ‘‘enhanced interpretive programs’’. So, if you are low-income can you only enjoy and learn from lesser programs? There is no mention of

the studies that show low-income people can not afford the access and use of public

land that wealthier people can. Access and use should be for all. The USDA April

2002 Interim Report to Congress on Fee Demo mentions that some low income citizens may be deterred from visiting public lands, but this is not addressed in this

bill. Obviously these people don’t count. For Seniors of various incomes, the Golden

Age Passport remains protected, yet in the Interim Report its future seems in doubt.

It is obvious that concerns exist that significant revenue will be lost if seniors continue to be allowed to a one-time, life-long purchase of a public lands pass. Read

that to mean that the public is now considered a revenue source for the federal government; also, read that to mean increased taxes via the term ‘‘user fees.’’

To add insult to injury to all of us, it is stated that ’’. . . the appropriate secretary

shall establish at least one day each year during periods of high visitation as a ‘Fee

Free Day’ when no entrance fee shall be charged.’’ So we should be grateful that

whatever our incomes, work schedules, or family duties, that we get one ‘free day’

out of an entire year to access with our families our own tax-supported lands. This

is outrageous! When fees are being collected, you can volunteer to collect them!

What a deal. Will those of us who can still afford to visit public lands still want

to when faced with so many rules, regulations, and fees?

Remember the 80% of fees that were to remain on site? Now a reduction to 60%

would be permissible. The ‘‘seamless’’ payment idea of a national fee is contradictory

to this proponent. The idea that collected monies from a site must be spent in one

year, or go into the Recreation black hole takes us back to where we are now—spend

it or lose it.

Many people suspected some time ago that one goal of recreation fees is to have

all public lands off budget completely, surviving on fees alone. Any attempt to make

fees widespread and permanent may be just the next step in a series towards that

end.

Your intentions might be one thing; but Senator, you are opening the door for future Senators to do as they please. In reality, while the Forest Service has claimed

that fee money goes back to the land, nearly half goes to concessionaires, administration, and enforcement. Also, the broad and vague wording leaves the impression

that further supplemental appropriations from government would not be forthcoming. If so, this means higher and new fees would be needed to meet the needs of

an area. The meaning and intent of this wording and the document as a whole is

unclear and means we can not be sure what to expect.

One thing we do know. Congress already has a simple tax collection method that

has been used for years to provide money for public lands. It has done this through

World Wars and Depressions, through good and bad economic times; but some time

ago, in the 1950’s, began cutting budgets and underfunding public land agencies—

diverting these tax monies to other uses. Now the cry is heard that there is not

enough money for public lands. If Congress had acted wisely and responsibly over

the years, continuing to allocate needed tax dollars to our public lands, we would

not be facing the ramifications of this new bill.

Regardless of the various Senate bills’ contents, the bottom line is that fees are

wrong. They discriminate against the poor, keep people out of their own lands, their

commons, their national heritage, and, are just another tax. But don’t forget what

will follow a permanent fee program if this bill passes. The proud corporate backers

of Fee Demo, The American Recreation Coalition, who dreamed up this idea back

in 1979, can then make their final move in their final profit-driven goal to develop,

commercialize, and privatize the undeveloped, natural areas we treasure. Investments in public lands by for-profit, private interests was not allowed nor financially

wise under the temporary Fee Demo program.

To emphasize this I would like to end with the following:

The just concluded Great Outdoors Week, an annual event sponsored by the ARC;

was just another lobby week put on by a Special interest organization to celebrate,

praise and further advance an ongoing campaign to commercialize and privatize recreational opportunities on America’s federally-managed Great Outdoors. While

31

ARC’s lobbyists were entertaining elected officials and public servants in Washington DC, with tax exempt funding, the American public was protesting ARC’s Corporate Takeover of Nature in locations from coast to coast funded out of pocket by

citizens and without tax benefit.

In addition the Federal Government appears to be wasting what little credibility

it retains in posting onto a publicly-financed web site a spurious sales pitch for a

lobbyists gala event? Why didn’t this federal web site promote them Citizens’ National Day of Action to End Forest Fees with the same enthusiasm it showed the

ARC. Check it out for yourself at http:llwww-recmation.gov/outdoors.afm

Senator, I do not yet know your reasons for sponsoring your bill, S. 2607. I do

not know what your hurry is in holding legislative hearings with little or no public

notice regarding fee demo given that this program has been authorized through

Sept. 2004. But, as a former government public servant: 7 years in the USAF, a

public school teacher and 9 years with the BLM as a seasonal river ranger, I continue to have faith in government and the democratic process. Senator, the fee program is wrong. We, citizens, stand to lose far to much and forever, if this program

continues and evolves in size. We are turning a corner in how public lands are funded and managed that will never be regained. Think seriously about what this means

to us and all future generations of Americans. I ask that you do the hard, yet noble,

thing and recall your bill and end Recreation Fees.

With respect to you and faith in government,

SKIP EDWARDS.

Prospect, OR, June 18, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Re: Fee Demo Bill—S. 2607

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: I hike, backpack and cross-country ski; and as a volunteer have logged many hours building and maintaining trails in our national forests.

Even in the first year of Fee Demo I contracted to ‘‘volunteer’’ in exchange for a

season trail park pass.

But then I started researching fee demo: Who is promoting and supporting it? I

find that the Forest Service wants to go into partnership with the American Recreation Coalition to privatize our public lands. I realize now that by purchasing a trail

pass I was ‘‘demonstrating’’ my support for the accelerated industrialization and motorization of our national forests.

Until now there was no way to legally oppose this program. My objections are

threefold:

1. The Forest Service would have us think that we need to privatize our forests in order to provide for the maintenance and protection of our natural and

undeveloped areas. We cannot protect the integrity of natural areas through

privatization. This is not even logical, and I don’t want my national forests developed.

2. It is an insult and an outrage to be asked to pay for a concept that I feel

is fundamentally flawed, deceptive and immoral.

3. The National Forests belong to all Americans. Free access to undeveloped

public lands is part of my national heritage. It belongs to my children, my

grandchildren and their children.

We pay taxes that should continue to fund Forest Service recreation budgets.

Please end the fee demo program so that all Americans can enjoy our undeveloped

public lands free of charge and excessive development.

Although I am 72 years old I still visit my national forests and I feel so strongly

about this issue that I will willingly go to jail before I will pay to park my car on

undeveloped land near a trailhead.

Please make this letter part of the public record for The Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee’s public hearing on Fee Demo on June 19th. Thank you for

considering this opinion.

Respectfully,

JANE G. COX.

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WILD WILDERNESS,

Bend, OR, June 18, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Re: Public Opposition to Recreation Fee Demonstration Program

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: The appended article from Saturday’s Spokesman Review (Spokane Washington) was one of the few Day of Action articles to quote Derrick Crandall, President of the American Recreation Coalition.

Crandall’s comments are important, and so I encourage you to read what he has

to say. I’d also like to specifically respond to the following most-important point and

invite you to respond to is as well.

Quoting from the article:

Crandall said his group proposes giving free permits to anyone who can

prove a financial need or is willing to volunteer for trail maintenance work.

Recreation fees are discriminatory and exclusionary. These are undisputed facts

emphasized by each and every one of the 30 groups of protesters who participated

in Saturday’s National Day of Action (www.wildwilderness.org). Crandall and the

USFS have, in effect, acknowledged that these fees are discriminatory when they

propose creating ‘‘second-class citizens passes’’ and when they suggest that poor people should be allowed to earn passes by working at sub-minimum, virtually-slave,

wages.

If there is a proven need for going to a recreation fee system (which there is not!)

then the fees should be voluntary such that no one must suffer the stigma of having

to prove themselves to be poor. And if volunteer passes are to be earned, then I hope

Mr. Crandall will support compensating all volunteers with a ‘‘living wage’’ of at

least $15 per hour in exchange for their labor.

I find it extraordinary that the USFS and Mr. Crandall believe that the current

USFS practice of offering a scant handful of ‘‘free days’’ a year is anything less than

grossly elitist—if not outright racist.

I also find the current USFS practice of compensating ‘‘volunteers’’ at less than

minimum wages as detestable. Creating user-fees which serve as an artificial barrier to poor persons and then using these fees as a mechanism for recruiting virtual

slave-labor from these same excluded-persons, is reprehensible—I advise everyone

reading this message to be on the sharp lookout for additional ‘‘Volunteer’’-related

legislation from ARC and the Bush Administration. ‘‘Volunteerism,’’ as the concept

is being abused by these people, is NOT to the supported.

And one last point upon which I’d like to draw attention: What does Mr. Crandall

mean when he says that his coalition is helping the agencies work out the challenges in collecting and distributing money? Who empowered ARC to be engaged in

this role—and what ever happened to Democracy in this country?

‘‘Fee-Demo is Un-Democratic’’

That was the theme for this year’s Day of Action.

Mr. Bingaman—on behalf of everyone who protested on Saturday, I challenge you

to try and prove us wrong I challenge you to explain how these ‘‘free days’’ and ‘‘volunteer passes’’ are solutions worthy of a Democratic society.

Sincerely,

SCOTT SILVER,

Executive Director.

WESTERN SLOPE NO-FEE COALITION,

Norwood, CO, June 18, 2002.

Hon. JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, U.S. Senate, Washington,

DC.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: I would like to share with you the serious concerns

that the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition has with Senate Bill 2607, or any bill that

would make the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program (Fee Demo) permanent.

The Western Slope No-Fee Coalition is a broad-based group consisting of motorized recreational interests, environmental groups, conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, elected officials and JUST plain citizens. Together we’ve been

working to end Fee Demo and encourage those of you in Congress to fund our public

lands adequately through the regular appropriations process.

We believe that there are monies already allocated to the management agencies

that, with reprioritization, can be used to pay down the maintenance backlogs in

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the four agencies and eliminate the verb reason for the fees. Appropriated funds

should be spent first for resource protection, backlogged maintenance and day-to-day

management before being used for capital improvements. Yet all of the agencies continue to build new facilities and infrastructure that only add to the maintenance

needs in the future.

American citizens own the public lands and pay for their maintenance through

our taxes. These same citizens are being denied access to their lands unless they

are able and willing to pay additional taxes in the form of fees. Worse, these fees

are creating a direct revenue stream to the agencies that bypasses congressional

oversight and leads to waste, fraud, and abuse.

We are working with Representative Scott McInnis to insure that a GAO audit

of the FCC Demo program takes place. We’re looking for accountability and responsibility from our land stewards. We also expect Congress to live up to their responsibility to oversee and prioritize spending of our taxes. Without a complete financial

review of the maintenance backlogs and a review of the fee program as a whole,

showinghow appropriated funds and Fee Demo funds are being spent, no judgment

of the program can be complete.

The American public is clearly and overwhelmingly against making this program

permanent. Resolutions of opposition have been sent to Congress by the state legislatures of Colorado, Oregon, California, and New Hampshire. In Colorado alone,

nine counties and numerous towns and cities have passed similar resolutions condemning the program. Over 240 organized groups oppose the program, and civil disobedience to it is rampant.

There are substantial funds already available to the land management agencies

for maintenance and day-to-day management. Fee-based funding for recreational

use is unpopular, inefficient, and unnecessary. We oppose Senate Bill 2607 or any

bill that would make Fee Demo permanent. We call on this committee and all of

Congress to let the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program expire in 2004. This

program cannot be ‘‘fixed.’’ It is fundamentally wrong.

Sincerely,

ROBERT FUNKHOUSER,

President.

June 18, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: My wife and I strongly oppose the Recreation Fee

Demo Program. Please do NOT make it permanent. In our opinion, there should be

no fees for use, access to, or parking on public lands. A volunteer program and public funding could be established/increased for the maintenance backlog. Please include this letter in the public record for the 6.19.02 public hearing. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

GARY AUTH.

North Hollywood, CA, June 19, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: I strongly oppose the Recreation Fee Demo Program

and am deeply concerned over plans to turn some form of it into law. The federal

government holds our public lands in trust for all its citizens: therefore, recreational

access to National Forests should be provided for by tax dollars, not by exclusionary

user fees. This land was bought and paid for by taxes from current and preceding

generations, to be held inviolate and in trust for future generations.

The notion of forest rangers as enforcers is antithetical to the great outdoors. Last

year in Colorado, armed forest rangers driving SUV’s (paid for by the fee demo) forcibly ‘‘policed’’ the fee by arresting protesters. Ironically, the protesters are technically exempt from the fee because they were not ‘‘recreating.’’ This heavy-handed,

fiefdom mentality is literally a century away from what Teddy Roosevelt intended

. . . today, we need his vision more than ever.

I urge Congress to provide adequate (and traditional) funding for Forest and Park

Service budgets to ensure that there will never be fees for access or parking on public lands. Everything from the wilderness to the Capitol Mall is our priceless heritage . . . how poor in spirit we will be if we charge people who seek to know their

county better.

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Please include this letter in the public record for the 6/19/02 public hearing.

Yours sincerely,

DAVID WILLIAMS.

Sandpoint, ID, June 20, 2002.

Senator BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.

We are writing you, and thus your committee, to strongly oppose S. 2607—making

the Recreation Fee Demo Program permanent.

Rather than charging individual users new fees for use of our traditionally free

lands, public funding should be restored and increased for needed maintenance and

improvements. Charge us through the tax system.

There should be no fees for non-commercial use of non-commercial access to or

non-commercial parking on National Forest and BLM public lands.

Please include this letter in the public record for the 6/19/02 public hearing.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

STEVE LOCKWOOD AND MOLLY O’REILLY.

Norco, CA, June 21, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Dirksen Building, Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATOR: I want these comments included in the record for the hearing of

June 19, 2002 on recreation fees:

I stopped recreating in the Lytle Creek area 15 years ago because of the lack of

security, graffiti on the rocks and trees, and the piles of trash that blanketed the

canyon floor. I know the Adventure Pass has made a difference first hand. I use

this area a lot now and feel safe because of the constant attention of the Rangers.

It would be a shame to lose this program.

Sincerely,

DANIEL EDWARD KERR.

Boise, ID, June 21, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: I strongly oppose the Recreation Fee Demo Program

and your bill to make it permanent, S. 2607. Please cancel this bill and work to terminate this increasingly unpopular program.

There should be no fees for the use of, access to or parking on public lands. Please

work with the Appropriations Committees to restore accountable public funding for

the maintenance of our public lands.

Please include this letter in the public record for the June 19, 2002 public hearing. I look forward to your response. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

LARRY E. SMITH.

Aseville, NC, June 23, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: I strongly oppose the Recreation Fee Demo Program

and your bill to make it permanent, S. 2607. Please cancel this bill and work to terminate this increasingly unpopular program.

There should be no fees for the use of, access to or parking on public lands. It

is a sneaky form of taxation. Beyond this fact, the user fees that have been collected

at the Nantahala River and at the Upper Ocoee River (Nantahala Forest and Cherokee Forest, respectively) have been used to build structures that are not needed, not

wanted, and hurtful to the environment. They have made massive parking lots,

which means more pollution in the rivers that I boat on—from cars (motor oils and

anti-freeze wash into the rivers from the parking lots after it rains). They have

made put ins and take outs on the rivers that are not user-friendly, or needed. I

split the stern of my kayak on the put in on the Upper Ocoee. The Nantahala have

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a take-out that is across the river from the change rooms and parking lots. It also

looks like a bomb shelter without a door. They have built expensive pit restrooms

and changing rooms that, in my opinion (I go there a lot) are not needed.

I see user fees as being another form of taxation: and the fact that these taxes

are used so wastefully disgusts me. Our nation needs to focus on what is important

and necessary, not on how the US Forest Service can promote businesses and build,

and build, (and build!) in our national forests. We need to spend our tax dollars on

fighting terrorism and providing health care to our children, for example. Not on

unneeded parking lots and changing rooms in the middle of nowhere. Or building

cement put ins on our rivers that damage boats.

Please include this letter in the public record for the June 19, 2002 public hearing. I look forward to your response. Thank you.

Sincerely,

SUSAN OEHLER.

New York, NY, June 24, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: I strongly oppose the Recreation Fee Demo Program

and your bill to make it permanent, S. 2607. Please cancel this bill and work to terminate this increasingly unpopular program. There should be no fees for the use of,

access to or parking on public lands. Please work with the Appropriations Committees to restore accountable public funding for the reasonable and respectful maintenance of our public lands. Please include this letter in the public record for the June

19, 2002 public hearing. I look forward to your response.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

ALAN ZDINAK.

SIERRA CLUB,

Washington, DC, July 25, 2002.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: On behalf of Sierra Club’s more than 700,000 members, I am writing to express serious concerns with S. 2607, the Federal Lands

Recreation Fee Authority Act. While we appreciate your efforts to remove controversial components of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program, we feel this legislation will continue to encourage the proliferation of fees on our public lands. This

legislation authorizes new fees to be charged at areas that are currently open and

free.

Sierra Club opposes the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program and is working

to end the program. Americans have a long tradition of enjoying our public lands

as special places to hike, hunt camp and fish. Basic access to our nation’s public

forests, rivers and deserts is not a commodity to be manipulated as a means of generating revenue. Congress should fully fund our public lands through the appropriations process instead of looking at new ways to charge visitors fees. Sierra Club

works to ensure that our land management agencies receive all of the funding they

need to protect and restore our public lands.

Sierra Club opposes user fees for the following 5 reasons.

• Americans already own and pay for the professional management of our public

lands, we should have free and equal access to them. We pay taxes every April

15th to support the federal management of our public lands.

• It is unjust for Congress to continue to subsidize industries that damage our

public lands and waters while charging families to visit these lands.

• There is evidence that the requirement to pay on-site access falls especially

heavily on those least able to pay. (More, Thomas & Stevens, Thomas. (2000)

Do User Fees Exclude Low-income People from Resource-based Recreation Journal of Leisure Research. Volume 32, No. 3 pp 341-357.)

• This program could create an economic dependence on motorized recreation and

excessive commercial development of public lands.

• If the public lands become even more dependent on user fees, they may lose the

federal funding needed to maintain and protect these lands.

While we recognize that you attempted to address some of these issues in your

legislation, this bill fails to assure that inappropriate fees will not continue to be

charged for visitors to our public lands. Broad language and lack of definitions in

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the bill could allow land managers the discretion to set up unlimited fee collection

sites on our public lands. While the legislation attempts to steer fee collection sites

to developed facilities, language still allows additional fee collection at undeveloped

areas on National Forest and Bureau of Land Management land.

We are particularly concerned about the impact of this legislation on dispersed

recreation sites such as National Forests, National Monuments and BLM land.

Since the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program was created, it has been met with

broad and increasing opposition especially when fees have been imposed merely for

hiking on National Forest land. For example, the Forest Service’s Red Rock Pass

in Arizona and the Adventure Pass in Southern California have both created significant opposition in surrounding communities, general confusion about fee structures

and the perception that the fees are unfriendly to tourists and local communities.

S. 2607 could allow these controversial and unpopular fees to continue indefinitely

and does not place any restrictions on the number of new sites. This could allow

for unprecedented expansion of new fee sites.

In addition, the legislation says fees may be charged for ‘‘an activity where a permit is required to ensure resource protection or public safety.’’ This language could

also be broadly interpreted to mean almost any visit to our public lands. Although

a valid concern public safety should not be used as a loophole to justify fees for hiking, canoe launches and similar sites.

While the intention of the bill appears to be to keep user fees on site for maintenance, the language allows broad discretion to use fees for ‘‘facility enhancement.’’

Including prohibitions on fee use for development such as the proliferation of fee

parking sites and the creation of damaging, revenue driven recreation attractions

such as off-road vehicle trails and mechanized ski-lifts is crucial. Our concern is that

fee programs will create incentives for land managers to develop new facilities in

order to qualify to set up new fee collection sites and use the revenue to expand

recreation sites. Our land managers should be focusing on protecting the land, not

creating attractions to bring in revenue for their site.

The lack of definitions creates other problems in the legislation and could allow

for broad interpretation of the bill. The bill does not provide an explanation of the

meaning of the terms ‘‘use fee,’’ ‘‘fee,’’ ‘‘entrance fee,’’ and ‘‘permit fee’’. It would appear that an entrance fee could be charged in order to reach an area where fees

are restricted such as a scenic overlook or visitors center. The terms ‘‘major recreation attraction’’ and ‘‘recreation purposes’’ are also not defined.

The Recreation Fee Demonstration Program was originally put in place as a rider

and has never received appropriate debate and public hearings. While last Wednesday’s hearing was a good first step, we would prefer the committee not move legislation without first hearing from the public, conducting field hearings and fully reviewing all the comments. The fast timeline that this bill is moving on will not allow

necessary review.

We look forward to working with you to fully fund our public lands without resorting to inappropriate and prohibitive user fees.

Sincerely,

DEBBIE SEASE,

Legislative Director.

Corona del Mar, CA, June 25, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: I want to let you know of my opposition to the continuation of the Recreational Fee Demo program. While I have abided by the program

and purchased a tag, I do not believe it is right to continue the program or make

it permanent.This is public land and it should be open for reasonable public use.

I can see no direct correlation to a fee program and direct improvement in any single forest or national recreation area. The program’s administrative expenses are exorbitant and with Government accounting, very little money ever gets back to where

it was raised.

Public funding should be raised for projects that directly improve these facilities

and not more personnel or endless fleets of new vehicles.

Please include this faxed letter in the public record for the June 19, 2002 public

hearings.

Sincerely,

DONALD R. AND SUSAN R. LAWRENZ.

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June 25, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: We strongly oppose the Recreation Fee Demo Program—called in our area the ‘‘Adventure Pass.’’ This program should NOT be made

permanent. Rather, the Congress needs to allocate the funds necessary to manage

our National Forests adequately. Our local Los Padres National Forest area has

gone from over 20 employees 10 years ago to less than 10 employees. There is nofee in the world that can possibly make up for such a drastic reduction in congressional budget allocation.

Public funding should be increased to provide for maintenance and personnel in

our National Forests which are held in trust by all of us for future generations. This

is not a matter of users and nonusers but a matter of stewardship for the future

of the United States of America.

Please include this letter in the public record for the 6.19.02 public hearing.

Sincerely,

LAURA AND STUART WILSON.

GREATER YELLOWSTONE COALITION,

Bozeman, MT, June 26, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, U.S. Senate, Washington,

DC.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: On behalf of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition (GYC)

and our 12,500 members nationwide, I offer these comments on S. 2607, the Federal

Lands Recreation Fee Authority Act, which would make permanent the recreation

fee demonstration program.

GYC has a long history of advocating for conservation of the natural resources in

the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Our mission is to preserve and protect the

Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the full range of its life, now and for future generations. Many of our members have deep concerns about this fee program and its

possible permanency.

Congressional budget cuts are creating a management crisis for federal land management agencies. On its surface, fee demonstration sounds reasonable in light of

ever-shrinking budget allocations for our national parks, forests, and other recreational areas. As more people visit and recreate on our publicly-owned lands, more

pressures are being placed upon those lands. The budgets of our publicly-owned

lands must be adequate to counter these pressures.

As a first and critical step, adequate funding must be provided by Congress for

the protection, conservation, and restoration of these lands. Funding should be additive and for resource protection (i.e., not for construction of additional restroom facilities or boat launches), and not substitutive for existing budgets. The fee demonstration program has created perverse incentives by encouraging more development and additional visitor services for sites and activities that generate more revenues.

Private/public ventures should be minimized, regulated, and consistent with the

public mandate to protect and preserve publicly-owned lands.

General access to public lands, such as Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands, should be without cost to users. Reasonable fees for access to national parks and wildlife refuges (those sites where access fees have historically

been charged) may be appropriate, so long as such fees are applied toward protection, conservation, and restoration of natural resources. Where permits are necessary to regulate visitor use to protect sensitive resources (i.e., wilderness areas

and river corridors), a nominal fee associated with administration of the permit system could be allowed.

Rigorous and unambiguous criteria for the use of fees should be developed. Fees

should not create economic barriers to use. And, most importantly, fees should in

no way create economic incentives for increased development, commercialization or

privatization of public resources.

The proposed Federal Lands Recreation Fee Authority Act is not consistent with

these principles. Until such time as a process is in place to thoroughly assess this

program, it should not be made permanent.

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We appreciate this opportunity to comment.

With regards,

MELISSA D. FROST,

Conservation Organizer.

THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE,

Concord, NH, June 26, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: I write to express the strong opposition of myself and

the New Hampshire State Legislature to the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program in the National Forests that you apparently are proposing to make permanent

in SB 607.

On April 25th of this year the New Hampshire General Court passed House Concurrent Resolution 23 (HCR 23) calling upon Congress to abolish the Recreational

Fee Demonstration Program. I have enclosed a copy of that resolution, which was

passed unanimously in our State Senate (23-0) and with overwhelming bipartisan

support in our House on a voice vote.

One strong objections that stands out for me is the fact that Congress consistently

fails to fully fund payments in lieu of taxes to counties and municipalities in which

the White Mountains National Forest is located. These counties and towns provide

emergency and other services to and within the National Forest without full reimbursement, often with the use of many local volunteers and yet the taxpaying citizens of this state have to make up the difference through our state and local taxes

and then they are also asked again to pay a fee to park their cars to be able to

access our public lands in the National Forest. This also discourages all of the volunteers who help maintain trails.

Instead of giving tax cuts to the rich why doesn’t Congress adequately fund the

National Forests and make full payment to localities of authorized payments in lieu

of taxes to support local services?

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Yours truly,

CLIFTON C. BELOW.

THE MOUNTAINEERS,

Seattle, WA, June 26, 2002.

Hon. JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chairman, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Washington, DC.

Re: Comments on S. 2607 ‘‘Federal Lands Recreation Fee Authority Act’’

DEAR MEMBERS: We submit these comments for the Congressional Record.

The Mountaineers, with nearly 15,000 members, is the largest outdoor muscle

power recreation and conservation club in the Pacific Northwest and the third largest in the nation. As a recreation club we sponsor about 5,000 trips a year. The vast

majority of these trips are to destinations in the federal Wildernesses and

backcountry here in Washington State. We are very concerned with access to, maintenance of, and safety in these public lands.

We are very pleased that you have brought the issue of recreational user fees before the committee for review. This offers the opportunity to evaluate and debate

the merits. Since 1996 the Mountaineers has been very actively involved evaluating

and commenting on the Users Fee Demonstration Program (Fee Demo). We have

worked closely with Region 6 of the Forest Service and in particular here locally

with the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest. We have also worked with the

National Park Service, especially Mount Rainier National Park. We believe that our

enduring involvement gives us valuable insight into many aspects of recreational

user fees.

The Mountaineers offer these general comments on S. 2607:

Fees collected should not be a budgetary offset for inadequate congressional appropriations. The fees must be a supplement used to address the vast backlog of deferred maintenance. For example, the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest

serving the Seattle metropolitan area’s three million citizens, has a backlog of 10

million dollars of deferred maintenance on 1,500 miles of trails.

The fees should not be used for the construction of new infrastructure; those costs

should only be authorized by appropriations.

39

The fees should be broad based and equitable. Discrete user groups should not

be targeted for fees simply because they are easily identified.

Broad area, national and regional, passes are a necessity. Here in the Pacific

Northwest, Region 6 of the Forest Service is selling a NW Forest Pass, valid at all

Region 6 forests. Addition of National Parks to these wide area passes would be an

improvement. Duplicate passes for individual forest would be costly, redundant and

overly burdensome to the ‘‘frequent user.’’

Fees must not be used to restrict access to public lands. If there are valid reasons

to limit visitation (ecological restoration, etc.) they should be handled separately.

The bill should include strong guidelines for public involvement regarding fee

structures and most particularly with decisions on how generated funds will be

spent. Also, public oversight at the local level, by those users who paid the fees, is

a necessity to account for expenditures.

The Mountaineers is concerned with the heavy emphasis both in S. 2607 and the

Forest Services ‘‘Blueprint’’ on front country infrastructure, visitor’s centers, developed parking lots, etc. The backcountry trails and campsites are heavily used and

greatly in need of maintenance to preserve and protect them, the environment, and

to provide a safe experience for the using public. There needs to be more balance

in S. 2607, recognizing the needs in the ‘‘undeveloped.’’ backcountry.

One of the positive developments of Fee Demo has been a greatly increased commitment of volunteer stewardship, that is, trail maintenance work parties. By contributing sweat equity, not only do these volunteers improve and repair trails at

very low cost, but they also earn credit toward passes. S. 2607 should address this

directly and encourage volunteer participation by a program of recognition and rewards. The Mountaineers believe that an annual pass for two days, or ten hours,

of labor is appropriate and reasonable.

The Mountaineers has the following comment on a specific section of S. 2607:

Sec. 2, sub section (d) RECREATION USE FEES, sub paragraph (2) cites (D) a

managed parking lot for which fees may be charged, while sub paragraph (3) cites

(A) general access to an area and (F) undeveloped parking as items for which recreation use fees may not be charged. As Fee Demo has developed in the Pacific NW,

‘‘undeveloped’’ parking lots at trailheads are the points of general access to an area

for which fees have been charged. Who will determine the difference between developed and undeveloped parking? And what exactly is general access? Do trails and

pit toilets constitute a developed facility? This language is too vague and wide open

to multiple interpretations and misinterpretations.

Once again thank you for reviewing the issue of recreation user fees. The issue

was entirely inappropriate in the appropriations process. The Fee Demo program

has generated a great deal of data on the collection, administration and spending

of user fees. Any legislation on recreational user fees should take full advantage of

the experience gained with Fee Demo by doing a full evaluation of the successes and

failures of that program. As any program of recreational user fees will impact a

wide range and great number of users of our public lands, we encourage Congress

to provide ample opportunity for public input and debate.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment on S. 2607.

Sincerely,

GLENN EADES,

President.

Durango, CO, June 26, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Re: Senate Bill 2607 to make the Fee Demonstration Program permanent

DEAR SIR: I have studied this bill thoroughly as well as kept myself well informed

regarding the Fee Demo. Program since it’s inception. As President of Seniors Outdoors!, a very active club of 430 members, we use the trails and parks for recreation

at least three times a week year round. I also belong to 4 Corners Backcountry

Horsemen, Trails 2000, and San Juan Mountain Association. All of these organizations voluntarily build, repair and maintain trails as do hundreds of other organizations.

Trail-users are generally very responsible in their use of natural resources. Many

of us use the outdoors for free recreation since we can’t afford and don’t like commercial encroachment into pristine natural environments.

Please, put a permanent STOP to the FEE DEMO PROGRAM. Return taxes to

funding the FS, BLM and DOW and give your generous support to FREE PUBLIC

LANDS. Charging fees for the use of public land is unethical and excludes the poor

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from an important resource for their enjoyment. There are better ways to maintain

these lands and plenty of volunteers are available. Come observe what Durango is

doing; see the real story of ways to ‘‘Share the Trails’’, ‘‘Leave No Trace’’ ‘‘Colo. Trail

Work Projects’’ etc. etc. THERE ARE BETTER WAYS TO KEEP OUR LANDS

FREE!!!

Sincerely,

DELL MANNERS.

Chino Hills, CA, June 27, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Dirksen Bldg., Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATOR: I am treasurer and secretary of The Angeles Volunteer Association, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and care of the Angeles

National Forest. Our volunteers assist the Forest Service in the care and maintenance of our National Forest. AVA is also a vendor of the Adventure Passes.

The Adventure Pass program increased dramatically the numbers of forest visitors whom we contacted. We were much better able to explain not only the Adventure Pass program but also forest regulations and precautions to make the visit for

everybody more enjoyable. Most of the time we hear positive comments for the Adventure Pass program especially as most of the money is used to improve the local

National Forest.

One other advantage of the Adventure Pass program is the reduction of gangs in

the forest and less gravity and trash. Before the introduction of the Adventure Pass

program our trails and environment suffered from thoughtless destruction by gang

or gang related people. Now most trails are clean and it is save to hike again. You

can enjoy nature at its best.

As a non-profit volunteer organization we are always strapped for funds. Being

a vendor of the Adventure Passes gave us income that we use to improve the environment and to advance the education of the forest visitors.

I have seen many improvements in the Angeles National Forest which were only

possible through the Adventure Pass program as Congress does not dedicate enough

funds to enable the Forest Service to provide adequate services. We have more patrols in the Forest by Forest Service employees, we have improved trailheads with

paved parking lots, restrooms, bear proof trash containers and much more. All these

advancements were financed with money from the Adventure Pass program.

I fully support the Adventure Pass program as a Forest Service volunteer and a

private citizen. Please, continue the program permanently.

I want this statement in the record for the hearing of June 19, 2002 on recreation

fees.

Sincerely,

DORIT QUAAS.

Ontario, CA, June 27, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Dirksen Building, Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: I am writing in support the U.S. Forest Service’s Adventure Pass. In our local mountains (San Bernardino National Forest) it is revenue

derived from the sales of the Passes has been used to assist with maintenance of

picnic areas by providing trash receptacles, portable restrooms, picnic tables and

other items.

It is also used to help regulate the numbers of people who use our public Forest

areas. This hot very, very dry Southern California summer will be especially important as our local forests are in grave danger of wild fires that can cause destruction,

injury and in extreme circumstances death.

I want these comments included in the record for the hearing of June 19, 2002

on recreation fees.

Thank you,

MARGARET STAMM.

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Twin Falls, ID, June 25, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chair, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee.

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: I strongly oppose the Recreation Fee Demo Program

and your bill to make it permanent, S. 2607. Please cancel this bill and work to terminate this increasingly unpopular program.

There should be no fees for the use of, access to or parking on public lands. Please

work with the Appropriations Committees to restore accountable public funding for

the maintenance of our public lands.

Please include this letter in the public record for the June 19, 2002 public hearing. I look forward to your response. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

CHRISTOPHER R. YOST.

FREE OUR FORESTS—OJAI,

Ojai, CA, June 17, 2002.

Senator JEFF BINGAMAN,

Chairman, Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, Dirksen Bldg., Washington, DC.

Re: S. 2607, Federal Lands Fee Authority

DEAR SENATOR BINGAMAN: Thank you for your efforts on this bill. To roam freely

on our public lands is a treasure that needs guarding for future generations.

Many don’t mind a fee for services offered, however, we do need to adequately

fund these lands, and our tax dollars should be the source.

Our Region 5 Forest Service has had their budget cut by about 45% in 21 years,

this translates to about 69% manpower, with an ever increasing population usage

upon these lands. Please provide the proper tax dollar funding badly needed.

We want our Forest Service to protect our heritage and not use private concessionaires. Return the dignity of these lands to its rightful stewards.

Thank you again,

P.S. ‘‘For every dollar that is paid in Federal taxes, only .00018 of a penny is spent

on recreation, heritage and wilderness programs, on Forest Service lands.’’ (U.S.F.S.,

1998 document)

HEIDI MAUER,

Chairman.

STATEMENT OF ANDREW O. MOORE, VICE PRESIDENT, PUBLIC AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS,

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SERVICE AND CONSERVATION CORPS

The National Association of Service and Conservation Corps, a membership organization of state and local youth corps that collectively engage 23,000 young adults

in conservation service nationwide, appreciates the opportunity to submit brief written testimony on S. 2473 and S. 2607 for the hearing record.

The National Association of Service and Conservation Corps (NASCC) supports

permanent authorization of a Recreation Fee program to reduce the maintenance

and restoration backlog on Federal lands and facilities, and to engage qualified

youth conservation and service corps to complete projects. To these ends, NASCC

recommends:

• Congress should encourage each collecting agency or bureau to allocate 10% of

Recreation Fee collections for partnership projects with state, local, and nonprofit youth corps in a manner consistent with the Public Lands Corps Act of

1993.

• Recreation Fee legislation should ensure—as Senator Bingaman and Administration witness stated at the hearing—that the application of fees takes place

in a manner that is consistent and equitable, and that continues to encourage

and allow all Americans and international visitors to enjoy our nation’s public

lands.

The National Park Service already effectively uses Recreation Fees to engage

youth in reducing the maintenance backlog with its Public Land Corps (PLC) program. Since 1999, PLC has directed a total of $14 million to local partnership

projects involving youth corps or other youth groups and the Park Service. To date,

two National Park Service Directors have utilized PLC for 916 projects on over 150

parks and monuments. Youth corps affiliated with NASCC have carried out 40% of

these projects.

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Region 6 of the Forest Service also recently demonstrated its strong commitment

to involving youth in Fee Demo-funded projects by increasing the percentage of

Recreation Fees dedicated to youth groups from 17% to 22%. In 2001, $500,000 of

the $3 million generated by the Northwest Forest Pass went to youth corps such

as EarthCorps, Student Conservation Association, and Northwest Youth Corps, This

year Region 6 plans to underwrite $650,000 in partnerships with youth employment

programs.

Linking a portion of Recreation Fees to youth program partnership projects offers

multiple advantages to the federal land agencies. These include:

• Youth corps complete labor-intensive backlog maintenance projects early or on

time, at or under budget, and to exacting Federal specifications.

• Youth corps typically provide up to 25% matching funds for projects.

• Providing youth corps participants from communities near forests, parks, and

wildlife refuges with paid employment keeps wages and spending in local communities and helps train the next generation of conservation stewards.

• Partnerships with corps permit Federal agencies to reach out effectively to

those who historically have not been frequent users of public lands.

• Many corps members come from disadvantaged backgrounds or are people of

color.

• Recreation Fees can provide an ongoing source of support that helps make corps

more sustainable, and operations more predictable.

STATEMENT OF JENNIFER LAMB, PUBLIC POLICY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL OUTDOOR

LEADERSHIP SCHOOL

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to

submit this statement to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources regarding the collection of recreation fees on federal lands. We ask that this statement be

included in the official record of the hearing on June 19, 2002.

The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) is a non-profit organization that

teaches outdoor skills, leadership and ethics to more than 8,800 students each year.

Founded in 1965 and headquartered in Lander, Wyoming, NOLS employs more than

800 instructors and staff at nine branches and two professional institutes worldwide. Our annual revenues exceed $19 million. NOLS’ mission is to be the leading

source and teacher of wilderness skills and leadership that serve people and the environment.

From our five U.S. branches, NOLS is a permitted commercial operator in 19 National Parks, 23 National Forests, three National Wildlife Refuges and 20 Bureau

of Land Management areas in nine western states. The core of our educational programs includes extended backcountry expeditions of 28 to 93 days in length—our

instructors and students spend significant amounts of time on public land. Our

management staff has considerable experience working with permitting and fee operations of each of the four Federal land management agencies. In 2001, NOLS

spent roughly $200,000 on permit fees to operate on federal land in the U.S.

In addition to being an accountable and responsive commercial operator, NOLS

has been an active participant in the recreation fee demonstration program since

its inception in 1996. We have provided verbal and written testimony at congressional hearings and worked with the agencies to identify both the positive and negative elements of the fee experiment. ‘‘On the ground’’, NOLS has experienced first

hand both the positive aspects of the program—many critical maintenance projects

that would otherwise remain on a backlog list have been funded to completion—and

the pitfalls of a loosely structured experiment—many fees are inconsistent, complex,

expensive and inconvenient for visitors.

This letter addresses the following topics:

Specific comments on the two bills currently being considered by the committee,

five key principles that NOLS believes are critical to a permanent fee program, and

general considerations regarding recreation fee policy.

1. Recreation Fee Bills Under Consideration

NOLS believes that the bills introduced by Senator Bingaman (S. 2607, the Federal Lands Recreation Fee Authority Act) and by Senator Thomas (S. 2473, the Recreational Fee Authority Act of 2002) offer a promising starting point for recreation

fee collection. However, both bills need further definition and clarification in a number of critical ways outlined below.

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What We Like About the Bills

NOLS will support a reasonable permanent fee program that applies to all four

of the Federal land management agencies. We realize that the National Park Service, with its already established entrance fee collection system, is in a better position

to implement an efficient collection program. However, a significant portion of the

nation’s outdoor recreationists visit lands managed by the Forest Service and the

Bureau of Land Management (BLM). These two agencies need considerable support

in managing recreation impacts. The Forest Service alone manages 133,000 miles

of trail, while the BLM, the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service

are responsible for 16,500, 13,000 and 1,500 miles respectively.

It is reasonable for visitors to pay limited fees for access to developed recreation

sites. We approve of both bills’ attempts to focus fee collection on those sites where

recreation impacts are greatest. That said, we have concerns about the inadequacy

of funding for backcountry areas that we will address later in this letter.

What Needs To Be Improved or Clarified

• Definitions: Both bills use many qualifiers, such as ‘‘major’’ recreation attraction, ‘‘efficiently’’ collected, and ‘‘substantial’’ Federal investment to define sites

at which fees are appropriate. Realizing that it was an experiment, a large part

of the problem with the fee demonstration program resulted from the inconsistency with which fees were applied. Unless specific guidance is provided regarding when fees are appropriate, NOLS fears that a permanent program will be

fraught with the same inconsistency experienced with the demonstration.

• ‘‘Layering’’ of fees: Both bills offer language to ‘‘minimize multiple fees within

specific units or areas.’’ (Section 2c(3)). We favor stronger language that seeks

to prevent the collection of multiple or layered fees. As the demonstration program has shown, a fee program that allows layering of charges will receive

strong criticism from both the general public and commercial operators.

• Section 2(e) of Senator Bingaman’s bill identifies a ‘‘Special Recreation Permit

Fee.’’ Will this fee be in addition to or take the place of existing fees for commercial permits such as the Forest Service’s Special Use Permit or the Park

Service’s Incidental Business Permit? Will commercial outfitters pay more than

one fee for each permit?

• In Section 2(b), Prohibition of Fees in the Bingaman bill, what defines a ‘‘bona

fide educational institution?’’ Does this include educational organizations such

as NOLS with 501(c)(3) status?

• Distribution of revenue: In an attempt to simplify the collection process, both

bills suggest that fees may be collected under a national pass system. While we

understand that a pass system has been recommended in the interest of collection efficiency and ease of use, we are concerned that fee revenue will not be

appropriately distributed to the areas of greatest need.

• Will critical projects that currently enjoy the support of fee demonstration revenue continue to be funded through other sources if they are not covered under

a new permanent program? We believe this question warrants thorough consideration to prevent further deterioration of backcountry resources, and we

present more detail in section three of this letter.

2. Fee Principles

NOLS believes the following principles should guide the development of a national

recreation fee program.

• Appropriation: Federal appropriations should fully fund proper care and management of our public lands. Given that this is unlikely in the near future, we

believe that a recreation fee collection program should provide an increased revenue stream to supplement but not supplant appropriations for public land

management. As many other outdoor recreation and conservation organizations

have expressed publicly, NOLS would not support a fee program that represents

a substitute for congressional appropriations.

• Limitation: The use of recreation fees should be limited to essential site maintenance and improvements that directly benefit recreational visitors. Fee revenue

should not be applied to other public lands management needs.

• Simplification and Efficiency: NOLS operates in many different public land

areas across the west. As a result, we have experienced a broad variety of fee

scenarios. We comply with all of them, though the complexity and incremental

expense of some is alarming. In some cases, we pay a commercial franchise or

permit fee (usually a percentage of gross revenue), and then a series of fees related to the activity; for example, an entrance fee, a backcountry fee, or a per

person/per day visitor or river-travel fee—all for one student course.

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Scenarios such as this raise questions about the efficiency of the system. With so

many different collection efforts, how much of this revenue actually makes it to the

ground where it will provide benefit to the resource?

Given the opportunity to re-design a fee program, NOLS strongly recommends the

elimination of this kind of layering of fees. NOLS also urges that fees be consistent

and reasonable across agencies and across different units within the same agency.

We recommend that the Congress consider placing a cap on the total dollar amount

that a commercial operator may pay in fees.

• Fees should remain with the resource where collected: The primary purpose of

a recreation fee program is to generate funds for maintaining the quality of the

natural resource that supports recreation. The original premise behind the fee

demonstration program—and the aspect of the program that is most readily accepted by fee payers—is the concept that fee revenue will be applied to the site

where it is collected. Visitors will see and experience the benefits of their contribution. NOLS supports a fee system that keeps revenues in the agencies and

units that generate them.

In both of the bills being considered, however, there is a strong emphasis on the

use of a national pass system. While such a system may be the only way to make

recreation fees palatable and feasible for the public, it blurs the original intent—

apply the fees where you charge them. We encourage the committee to carefully consider the merits and the potential pitfalls of a national pass in this context.

• Retention: As a permittee on national forests throughout the west, NOLS

strongly encourages Congress to consider allowing the Forest Service—as it does

the Park Service and the BLM—to retain fees collected from commercial outfitters and guides. This shift would provide the agency with access to an existing

source of revenue from which the other two agencies already benefit.

3. Policy Considerations

Funding for Backcountry and Wilderness Areas

There seems to be a general opinion—and the bills being considered reflect—that

the public should not be charged for visiting dispersed backcountry areas on public

land. However, these areas need additional funding—it costs money to manage wilderness. NOLS, Outward Bound, and commercial outfitters and guides have for

many years paid fees to visit backcountry and wilderness areas. More and more frequently, we learn from local land managers that they don’t have the funding or the

staff to complete basic resource management tasks. Often, they lack the resources

to take advantage of our offers to provide volunteer assistance—they cannot provide

staff time even to coordinate an effort that will leverage volunteer resources.

If a recreation fee program is designed solely to fund front-country highly developed recreation areas, Congress must carefully consider methods to distribute funds

to all areas of need, or develop alternative ways to properly support backcountry

and wilderness lands. Some ideas are presented in the section that follows.

The Fee Demonstration—Apply What Has Worked

While the fee demonstration program evoked sharp criticism from some corners

and solid support from others, some good came out of it and some very positive lessons were learned. We encourage Congress and the agencies not to throw out the

entire program and start again, but to incorporate the positive elements of the demonstration. Why else perform an experiment?

Most important of these elements is the development of effective partnerships between public and private entities that were created to leverage volunteers and dollars to perform critical projects on public lands. For example, on one Forest Service

District in the pacific northwest in 2000, Northwest Forest Pass revenue—Fee Demo

dollars—allowed the agency to clear 788 miles of trail and establish agreements

with five non-profit organizations that performed work on the Forest valued at

$614,000. With revenue from the fee program available as a match, the Forest successfully competed for state funds through the National Recreation Trails Program,

bringing in an additional $100,000 for maintenance.

There are numerous examples in which fee demonstration revenue enables the

completion of annual maintenance projects through the development of partnerships

with volunteer organizations that leverage the agencies’ ability to perform critical

work. These efforts should continue and more should be established.

NOLS works closely with numerous Districts within 23 different National Forests

in the mountain west. In many cases, we have partnered with the agency to perform

volunteer service projects that give our students hands-on experience with the challenges of land management and help the agency complete maintenance work in the

backcountry. We are concerned that projects that are currently possible with the use

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of fee demonstration revenue—projects that leverage both money and volunteers—

will fall by the wayside under a new permanent program that does not address

backcountry areas. We encourage the Congress to consider carefully the impact of

a new fee system on existing programs currently funded with fee demonstration revenue. Perhaps through the development of Memorandums of Understanding or programs such as Challenge Cost Share, agencies can maintain the momentum they

have gained with existing partnership programs.

Volunteer Support and Management

A number of organizations, including NOLS, have actively followed the evolution

of the fee demonstration program and have requested that the agencies increase

their level of involvement with volunteer groups. As described above, NOLS has witnessed on many occasions that partnerships between agencies and non-governmental organizations can bring enormous benefits to public land and to the people

who visit it. We strongly encourage the Congress to develop provisions in a permanent program that enhance the agencies’ ability to partner with volunteers, not only

for the collection of fees, but also for the performance of work projects.

NOLS appreciates the level of effort and analysis that the Congress and the agencies continue to give to the recreation fee program. In addition, we appreciate the

opportunity to provide our opinion on recreation fees and on a possible permanent

program. We are always available for additional information and input.

Æ