For five years, I’ve been railing against the recreational fee frenzy going on within the Forest Service, and after reading hundreds of comments (online and offline), I’ve noticed a common theme that I should address. Why, many commenters ask, am I so concerned about these relatively small, pay-for-play fees when we’re facing colossal environmental issues such as climate change, roadless lands protection, mining law reform, and energy development?
My answer is, this is big, too. The trend toward more and larger recreation fees fits perfectly with the plans of those who would like nothing better than to privatize our public lands.
I know it only seems like a measly $5 here or $25 there, but it’s the old nibbled-to-death strategy – you hardly notice it happening until one day, you can no longer find an affordable place to hike or hunt or camp. Interestingly, I believe every major green group opposes privatizing public lands, yet not one does or says anything about this obvious attempt to do it. Go figure.
The primary voice among the green community comes from a tiny nonprofit called Wild Wilderness. Here, executive director Scott Silver serves the role of that proverbial voice in the wilderness nobody seems to hear.
Not a believer? Consider this admission by Warren Meyer, a board member of the National Forest Recreation Association (NFRA), the main lobby for private concessionaires. On his personal blog, he stated: “As many of you know, I am in the business of privatizing public recreation.”
That revealing quote is just one little gem in a treasure chest of documentation Silver has amassed on how recreation fees foreshadow public land privatization. I wish I had space for more of it here, but you can see it all on his Web site, wildwilderness.org.
The privatization agenda was the vision of President Ronald Reagan and was first implemented by former Forest Service Chief Dale Robertson with major help from the main lobby for privatization, the American Recreation Coalition (ARC). For the past 30 years, with the ARC and NFRA leading the way, private concessionaires have exerted increasing pressure upon the Forest Service to privatize public recreation, and it’s working.
And as noted frequently in my past columns, there’s also the issue of double taxation. We pay for the privilege to use our public lands every year on April 15, which has been the main impetus behind a bill introduced S. 868 by Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) to repeal Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act.
Anyway, what’s the solution?
For starters, tacking S. 868 onto the next must-pass legislation as a rider would certainly do the trick, but we also need two more things to happen.
First, Congress needs to replace the fee income within the appropriations process to take pressure off Forest Service employees to make more money on fees and concessions to save their jobs. Second, the Obama administration needs to put both feet on the brakes to stop the reckless rush to hire private concessionaires to manage on our National Forests.
Exact figures are elusive, but roughly, the Forest Service takes in $62 million per year in recreation fees and hardly any revenue from private concessionaires (another story for another time). I must ask, is this really a lot of money by public or private budget standards? Let’s put $62 million in perspective.
Today, we can instantly find billions to fight endless wars (a trillion+ so far), bail out the too-big-to-fail banks and provide unbudgeted federal aid for natural disasters. The point is: Come on, Congress. Just put it in the budget and do something for all of us. That’s only $116,000 per each of the 535 congressional and senatorial districts.
If you really need to raise my income taxes 0.01 percent to cover the cost, hey, go for it. Or better yet, build five instead of the six nuclear submarines currently under construction, which would save enough to reimburse the Forest Service for lost fee income for the rest of the 21st Century. Are nuclear subs really a good investment in the future compared to keeping public lands public?
As I write this, the Obama administration is hardly blinking at spending $200 million per year for several years to put just one terrorist on trial in New York City, with lots more terrorists waiting for their years in court. At least 20 states haven’t even accepted $5 billion each in federal stimulus funds because they have to match it, so that’s something like a $100 billion just sitting there for the taking. Meanwhile, we can’t find $62 million in a $2.65 trillion budget to stop the privatization of our public lands?
The point is, we can find this money. If our elected representatives don’t do it and our major green groups won’t even make it a priority issue, well, I guess we Americans can assume they favor privatizing our public lands.