WESTERN SLOPE NO-FEE COALITION
P.O. Box 403, Norwood, CO
81423
www.westernslopenofee.org
Robert Funkhouser
President
Testimony Before the
Committee on Resources
United States House of
Representatives
Hearing on HR 3283
May 6, 2004
Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the
Subcommittee;
Thank you for the privilege of testifying before
you today concerning HR 3283, The Recreational Fee Demonstration
Program, and Public Ownership of Public Lands.
I am Robert Funkhouser, President of the Western
Slope No-Fee Coalition, a coalition that has come to represent
hundreds of organizations and millions of Americans nationwide in
advocating for the continued tradition of public ownership of public
lands and the rejection of the access tax approach to public land
management. Our mission is to end the Recreational Fee Demonstration
Program, to require more accountability within the land management
agencies, and to encourage Congress to adequately fund our public
lands.
The current Fee Demo program began as an
appropriation rider in 1996 and has been extended five times through
the appropriations process. After eight years of a demonstration
program it is clear that the program has not been a success outside
of possibly the National Park System. After eight years it is clear
that Americans do not support fees to access federally managed
public land and waters. It is clear that Americans prefer fiscal
responsibility to the seemingly endless use of appropriated funds
for capitol infrustrure. And after eight years it is clear that
Americans will not give up their ownership of their public lands to
become customers and trespassers.
The legislation before us today, HR 3283
authorizes the National Park Service as well as the Forest Service,
Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the
Bureau of Reclamation to charge a basic access tax of Americans that
simply set foot or tire on any of the 640 million acres managed by
these agencies. The Fee Demo Program, as we know it, long ago
stopped being a "user fee" and became an access or
entrance fee. The premise that the American public, not the
management agencies, owns our public lands, and pays to maintain
them through our taxes is alive today as much as ever. The owner is
the citizen of the United States who voted and sent to Congress the
Representatives and Senators who make up this body. Congress then
established agencies to manage certain Forests and public domain
lands, to provide fair, equitable means by law and regulation for
the goal and benefit of settlement, resource development and
recreation activity. Every citizen of the United States has the
statutory right as well as the Constitutional heritage to enter the
forests and public domain lands to explore, or recreate in those
resources. If we allow the agencies to charge a fee or require a
permit to enter these lands then we have given ownership of the
lands to the agencies and taken it away from the people. Under HR
3283 access these public lands would now be a privilege you pay for
and no longer a right. The Fee Program as we know it today and even
more so with this proposed legislation represents an across the
board double taxation on the taxpayer.
The National Parks differ greatly from the Bureau
of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest
Service, and Bureau of Reclamation in regards to fee collection
authority. The Parks, unlike the other agencies, have a long history
of charging entrance fees. They have the existing collection
infrastructure, a higher level of development and service that the
public expects.
Fee authority for the Parks is about fee
retention. It is about allowing the National Park Service to retain
the fees that the agency has been collecting for decades. In the BLM,
the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Forest Service the Fee Demo
Program is about establishing new fees and it is this new authority
that has been so controversial and unpopular that we are opposed to.
Although we do not oppose a fee program in the
National Parks, ( but not the language of HR 3283), we do have
serious concerns about the incentive this authority brings with it
to maximize revenues beyond what is fair and equitable to the
American taxpayer. The National Park Service, under Fee Demo, has
doubled and sometimes tripled the entrance fees at some National
Parks. On top of that the agency now charges for such basic services
as parking and mass transportation. The agency is also charging
additional fees for such activities as backcountry hiking and
trailhead use.
The public knows full well the difference between
the National Parks and the lands and waters managed by the Bureau of
Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of
Reclamation, and the Forest Service. To start with they know that
the National Parks is where the tollbooths are. The National Parks
is where it costs $50.00, in some locations, to enter with their
families. The public knows that there is a vastly higher level of
infrastructure that needs to be maintained in the Parks and a higher
level of service.
Yet, even with fee retention authority for the
last eight years the National Parks are still in financial trouble.
Visitation is down, at least partially due to the cost of entrance
fees, and the NPS is cutting back on services. Much of the budgetary
woes that plague the Parks is due to the enormous maintenance needs
of its aging infrastructure.
As opposed to the implementation of the
Recreational Fee Demonstration Program in the National Park Service,
Fee Demo has proven to be a failure in the Forest Service, BLM, and
Fish and Wildlife agencies. These fees were formerly limited to
developed campgrounds and a few highly developed recreational sites
carefully defined by Congress in the Land and Water Conservation
Fund Act of 1965. Under Fee Demo, fees have been allowed to
spread to hundreds of undeveloped and minimally developed areas.
Americans are now being charged fees for such basic services as
picnic tables, roads, and trails, and for access to vast tracts of
undeveloped public land.
The fundamental dilemma is, does the American
public demand that all 640 million acres of public land be managed
as National Parks as HR 3283 calls for? Is the public really
demanding that the land management agencies spend hundreds of
millions of taxpayer dollars to build capital infrastructure to
"enhance" what God has already given us?
Or, would the public and the local land managers
be better served by taking a course that emphasizes the use of our
limited resources to maintain what we already have first? To adhere
to fiscal responsibility in emphasizing maintenance and operations
over uncontrolled growth. A course that upholds public ownership and
public access and at the same time gives our local land managers the
tools they need to accomplish their mission.
In all the thousands of contacts I have had with
organizations, individuals, local and State governments in the last
few years on this subject I do not recall anyone advocating for the
kind of agency growth that the incentives created by this
legislation would produce. The incentive to "build it and they
will pay" is clearly not in the public’s best interests. Nor,
can we as a nation afford to maintain that level of capital
infrastructure. Again, look what’s happening to the Parks. It
becomes a vicious circle: The more the government develops its
public lands – the more maintenance is required – the more fees
are imposed – the fewer number of people who can enjoy these
special places. And in this circle, we lose access to our natural
areas. This "Spiral of Government Growth" is also
known as "Empire Building." Examples of this are
widespread.
The BLM at the Escalante National Monument are
building three new visitor centers. One alone costs over
$10,000,000. At the same time Monument managers want to start
charging for backcountry use and car camping because they do not
have the funds to deal with those uses.
At the Maroon Bells in Pitkin County, Colorado the
Forest Service has built a toilet for $1,600,000, but has to charge
a fee because they say they don’t have the funds for toilet paper.
The Forest Service at Yankee Boy Basin in Ouray,
Colorado threatened to close this world class jeeping and hiking
area unless the Fee Program was allowed citing lack of funds for
toilet maintaince. The following year the Forest Service spent over
$650,000 to expand a concessionaire run campground across the
highway.
Furthermore, the use of appropriated funds as well
fee revenue to establish a higher level of capital infrastructure
and service on the public lands allowed by this legislation competes
directly with the private sector located in the communities adjacent
to these lands. The loss of tourist dollars, jobs, and tax revenue
in these local communities to taxpayer-subsidized land management
agencies or their partners would be irreplaceable. Many of these
local governments are already hurting because of the under funding
of PILT.
HR 3283 is a regressive tax. It puts the burden of
public land management on the backs of Americans who live adjacent
to or surrounded by federal land. In rural counties such as mine in
western Colorado, where 87% of the land is federally managed, public
lands are an integral part of life. To mandate that those local
residents carry a heavier burden of funding our land management
agencies is unjust and unfair. The nation as a whole has and should
continue to provide adequate funding. There is much that the Federal
Government funds that I will never benefit from, for instance most
discretionary spending.
HR 3283 is also a regressive tax because it
discriminates against lower income and working Americans. A Forest
Service study showed that 23 percent of lower income Americans no
longer visited our public lands due to the fees. It stated that 49
percent of all Americans regardless of income use the public lands
significantly less due to the fees.
Opposition to the current Fee Demo program has
been overwhelming and widespread. It is clear that even more
Americans will oppose this "National Public Lands Access
Tax" that HR 3283 represents. From New Hampshire to California,
from Idaho to Arizona, Americans from all walks of life and all
political persuasions are raising their voices against this program.
Resolutions of opposition have been sent to Congress by the state
legislatures of Colorado, Oregon, California, and New Hampshire.
Thirteen counties in western Colorado alone, as well as counties,
cities, and towns across the nation have passed resolutions opposing
the program. Hundreds of organized groups oppose Fee Demo, and civil
disobedience to it is rampant.
Fee Demo has been a financial failure as well. The
General Accounting Office recently released the findings of an audit
concerning the Fee Demo program in the Forest Service (GAO-03-470).
They found that in FY2001 the Forest Service used $10 million of
appropriated funds for administration of the Fee Demo program and to
augment collection costs. This $10 million, almost one-third of
their total fee revenues, had been previously unreported in the
agency’s annual report to Congress. The GAO also found that the
agency had been under-reporting the costs of administration,
collection, and fee enforcement. Although the Forest Service claimed
the program was a success, with gross revenue in FY2001 of $35
million, the truth is that the program brought in far less than $15
million because the cost of overhead, collection, and enforcement
was well over 50%.
Until the GAO audits the BLM and Fish and Wildlife
Service Fee Demo programs, their true financial results are
uncertain, but as it stands, the net revenues for these two agencies
in FY2001 are estimated at less than $4 million.
The Fee Demo program has changed the mission of
the land management agencies from one of resource management and
stewardship to one of revenue generation. It allows the three
agencies to appropriate their own funds without any congressional
oversight. This creates a perverse incentive to maximize revenue at
the public’s expense, and has resulted in excesses of
implementation and enforcement such as charging fees for unimproved
backcountry areas, forest wide fees, simple picnic tables, and
parking.
Under Fee Demo, it is not just the public that has
suffered. The agencies are experiencing an increasingly strained
relationship with local communities and the public as a whole. The
land management agencies are a tentative guest in many communities
to begin with. When they assume a heavy enforcement role, as Fee
Demo forces them to do, it erodes any positive relationship that had
been built. Gene Chandler, the New Hampshire Speaker of the House,
has said, "This program drives a wedge between local
governments and public on one hand and the federal land management
agencies on the other." The longer the wedge stays in place,
the harder it will be to repair the damage. Volunteerism suffers and
community involvement suffers.
HR 3283 further encourages the focus on revenue
generation over stewardship and service. HR 3283 revokes the ability
of our seniors to purchase a lifetime Golden Age Passport for
entrance to our National Parks. Seniors on limited budgets will now
have to purchase an annual pass to enter not only the Parks, but to
access any of our public lands.
HR 3283 would make criminals out of taxpayers. The
legislation calls for a Class B misdemeanor for those that have
entered upon public land without a pass. It is clear that compliance
with Fee Demo is, indeed, dismal. The program has not won over the
hearts and minds of the public and a Big Stick approach will only
alienate more Americans. If a $100 fine has been insufficient to
deter the public from using their public lands, a $5,000 fine most
likely will. Citizens should not face jail time or a $5,000 fine for
simply walking in the woods without paying the $5.00 fee.
HR 3283 would take away the Constitutional
presumption of innocent until proven guilty. Again, in an effort to
enforce the unenforceable our Constitutstional protections are being
trampled on.
HR 3283 is forcing a square peg in a round hole.
The American taxpayer has already done their part.
Surely we as a nation are above charging for public restrooms, dirt
roads, parking and picnic tables.
We believe that Fee Demo is not the solution. Nor
is it all about more appropriated funds. There are already funds
available that with re-prioritization can be used to address
maintenance needs and to keep public lands operating.
We firmly believe that the solution is a matter of
will.
·The will of Congress to hold the agencies truly
accountable for the appropriated taxpayer dollars that they already
receive each year. Again, the GAO has reported that the Forest
Service "has not been able to provide Congress or the public
with a clear understanding of what the Forest Service’s 30,000
employees accomplish with the approximately $5 billion the agency
receives every year." It is time to bring "Sound Fiscal
Science" to public land management.
·The will of Congress to tear down the firewall
between the Capital Infrastructure budget and recreation budgets so
that those millions can be used for maintenance and operations, not
for building more visitor centers and paved parking lots that only
add to the maintenance needs of the agencies.
·The will of Congress and the agencies to find
effective avenues for appropriated dollars to get to the ground.
Operations and maintenance at the local level should be paramount.
·The will of Congress and the agencies to
restrict the pilfering of recreation, operations, and maintenance
budgets for other purpose so that the local agency managers have the
funds they need to fulfill their goals and objectives.
·The will of Congress to create incentives that
encourage the agencies to identify their maintenance backlogs and
encourage them to be addressed.
·And the will of Congress to adequately fund
these agencies through the appropriations process. Adequate funding
goes hand in hand with accountability and redirecting priorities.
Fee Demo is an attempt to introduce the concept of
"direct taxation" into the management of our public lands,
completely reversing the previous system of public ownership
supported by public funding. The Land and Water Conservation Fund
Act (LWCF) of 1965 contained carefully crafted language defining
what services were appropriate to charge fees for, such as developed
campgrounds and mechanized boat launches. It also specified what
services are prohibited from charging a fee, such as roads, visitor
centers, scenic overlooks, toilets, and picnic tables either singly
or in any combination. Those guidelines served the American public
well for over thirty years.
We believe that the public will support fees, for
the agencies outside of the National Parks, for services only as
specified under the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act and that
the provisions restricting fees should be kept intact. We believe
that all funding for these agencies should come from our tax
dollars, through the appropriations process with more oversight, not
less.
We urge those of you on this Committee to
recognize the distinct differences between the National Parks and
the land managed by the other agencies. We urge you to choose the
financially responsible coarse, to maintain what we already own
first, to stop this "Spiral of Government Growth", and to
uphold Public Ownership of Public Lands. We ask you not to support
this legislation, HR 3283.
Mr. Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for your consideration of this important issues.
