By Crystal Chesshire
Tea Party Fund-Raiser

For 100 years, our nation’s public lands have been managed so as to maximize the monetary value that could be extracted from them. Today, a major shift in federal land management policy is being developed and implemented. No longer is it enough to extract minerals, oil and timber from the land. Today, nature itself is being converted into a commodity to be sold.

Legislation launching the Recreation Fee Demo Program, poster child of this ideal, sneaked through Congress in 1996. Since then, the program has been implemented at selected recreation areas across the country. Thanks to this program, visitors to most of the scenic areas near Sedona are now asked to buy a Red Rock Pass. A daily pass is $5. Fee Demo has been promoted as a way to supplement budgets for public land management agencies. The Fee Demo program allows the Forest Service and other agencies to charge higher fees for admission to federally managed lands. Fees may be imposed to access any part of these lands, including parking areas, trailheads, climbing areas and rivers. Nearly one-third of the land in the contiguous United States could soon be affected by the program. The public has been told that revenue generated will be used to better manage our sprawling public landscape.

The reality is much more unsettling. Since 1979, the American Recreation Coalition has been working to convince Congress that user fees are a superior method to fund public land recreation than general funds. Coincidentally, during the same two decades, we have seen a dramatic decrease in congressional budgets for the management of federal recreation lands. ARC represents the interests of over 120 corporations such as Disney, Yamaha and Exxon-Mobile. Hinting at the future of “pay-to-play” management, president of the ARC, Dick Crandall, told Congress in 1998, “The American public feels that recreation on public lands is an incredible bargain, and is willing to pay substantially more.” In 1996, during a budget crisis, the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program was passed as a rider to the Interior Omnibus Appropriations bill. As a rider, the act was not open to public comment or congressional debate.

The trial period for access fees has been extended four times, and never fully debated by our representatives. The Bush administration is now proposing to make such fees permanent. ARC sees our public lands as an untapped market with enormous moneymaking potential for the private sector. An example of ARC’s influence in public land management is Francis Pandolfi, ex-chief operating officer of the U.S. Forest Service. Prior to heading the Forest Service, Pandolfi was chairman of the ARC. Pandolfi wrote in 1999, “Have we fully explored our gold mine of recreational opportunities in this country and managed it as if it were consumer product brands? Selling a product, even to an eager customer, is very different from giving it away.” 

The Fee Demo Program represents another step toward changing the essence of public lands, converting them from a free resource for public exploration into an income-producing commodity for private business. Corporations will “improve” federal land through development of private-sector investment. Development of private forest-based lodges, resorts, marinas, riding stables, campgrounds, would all offer “consumer-friendly” recreational opportunities. These improvements would be paid for with revenue generated from the passes. 

Besides being philosophically unsettling, Fee Demo is financially unfeasible. These “pay-to-play” management plans are barely able to support the costs of administrative overhead. In the Southwest, during 2001, more than $4.8 million in fees was collected. After paying expenses, only 2 percent of the gross was left as revenue. Only 0.8 percent is spent on “habitat enhancement” and “resource preservation.” (See: www.fs.fed.us/recreation/fee_ demo/2001report/2001_ report_tables.htm.) In 2001, out of a total Forest Service budget of over $4 billion, Fee Demo generated just $30 million in fees nationwide. Of this, more than 50 percent was spent on overhead and implementation of the fee program itself. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of tax dollars are spent each year to subsidize the timber, mining and ranching operations that exploit our public lands. 

Since this is only a “demonstration” program, the Forest Service is basing the program’s success on the number of passes sold. Therefore, buying a pass is a vote for the system. The threat of fines for not paying the fee is pressuring visitors into showing support for a system that they might not like. In one case, a California judge ruled in favor of a defendant who had refused to pay the fee, saying that “purchase of the pass is discretionary not mandatory.” This case shows that it is your First Amendment right to be able to “vote” against Fee Demo by not buying a pass.

There has been growing opposition to the program across the country. In Oregon, part of the Democratic Party platform is the abolition of Fee Demo. At the beginning of May, in a great show of bipartisan support, the Colorado Senate and House of Representatives passed a resolution opposing the Fee Demo program by a vote of 96-3. The resolution stated, “The concept of paying Recreational Fee Demonstration Program Fees to use public lands is contrary to the idea that public lands belong to the American people and are places where everyone is granted access and is welcome, a concept that has been in place and should remain in place.” Colorado is the fourth state, following California, Oregon, and New Hampshire, to call for Congress to restore federal funding to our public lands and abolish Fee Demo.

Meanwhile, some companies, including clothing manufacturer Patagonia, have come out against the Fee Demo program.
 
The Arizona No Fee Coalition, headquartered in Flagstaff, is one of 240 organizations that opposes the Fee Demo program. Dave Sherman, director of the Coalition, says, “We must preserve the proud American tradition of free access to public lands unmolested by commercial development. After all this is a tradition based on landscapes and not amenities.”
 
The group has persuaded local U.S. Representatives Bob Stump (R) and J.D. Hayworth (R) to oppose the program. The Arizona Green Party has also recently signed on to support the termination of Fee Demo. Arizona No Fee Outreach Coordinator Jon Orlando has been enlisting user groups of hikers, rock climbers and bikers to expand the base of dissent. Orlando explains that “local opposition can cause great change in federal programs. We are working on changing a greater tide.”

The Arizona No Fee Coalition has defended more than a dozen citizens charged with failing to pay access fees. Almost all of these cases were dismissed. The Forest Service must prove that a defendant was recreating on the land. Every case in which the defendant was not actually seen recreating by a ranger was dismissed. In Sedona, the maximum fine for not buying a pass is $30.

Arizona activists are working hard to organize against Fee Demo, ensuring that the public lands will remain open to everyone. June 15 is a national day of action. There will be more than 30 protests around the country, including a large rally in Sedona (See Action Alert below.)

Leaders who foresaw the importance of conserving our natural resources for future generations have preserved more than 623 million acres of public land in America. President Theodore Roosevelt said in a 1901 address to Congress, “Some at least of the forest reserves should afford perpetual protection to the native flora and fauna. Free camping grounds ... should be set apart forever for the use and benefit of our people as a whole and not sacrificed to the shortsighted greed of a few.”

Continued free access to our public lands is now at risk thanks to greedy corporations. These entertainment and recreation companies see our natural heritage as their newest profit-making product. Now is the time to create enough public pressure to reclaim public lands as a free resource to be enjoyed by all. 

ACTION ALERT
End the Red Rock Pass

On Saturday, June 15, from 1-4 p.m., a demonstration in opposition to the Red Rock Pass will be held at the Y (intersection of Hwy 179 and 89A) in Sedona. This demonstration will be synchronized with at least 35 other demonstrations across the country in a National Day Of Action to oppose the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program.

The protest will be followed by a concert to celebrate the liberty of public lands at Oak Creek Brewery at 6:30 p.m.

To carpool from Flagstaff, contact Carly Long at 774-9432, earthhug@yahoo.com. 

You can also contact Rep. Scott McInnis, chair of the House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health to tell him of your opposition:

1337 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515-6205
Forest.Health@mail.house.gov