The following editorial appeared in the San Bernardino Sun on May 16, 1999.
Imagine the state cutting funds for freeways, year after weary year, then erecting toll booths at each freeway entrance to make up for the shortfall.
Would we accuse the state of double dipping, taxing us to a fare-thee-well and then charging extra for us to use our own roads? You bet we would, and we would be right.
That's precisely what has happened with the federal government and its Adventure Pass program, the feds' way of erecting toll booths to our mountains here. The program was first introduced two years ago and then extended until 2001. Now, the experiment is headed for more discussion, with the two sides remaining far apart.
Let's be clear: The Adventure Pass should die. However, the piece of legislation envisioned to do precisely that - a bill sponsored by Palm Springs Rep. Mary Bono - is badly flawed, because it does not address the funding shortfall that has been years in the making.
For that reason, it should be defeated, and legislators instead should seek more comprehensive legislation that restores and augments the funding for all agencies that administer our public lands.
The Adventure Pass was the U.S. Forest Service's response to budget cuts made a few years ago by Congress.
The recreation budget for the San Bernardino National Forest has been cut nearly 30 percent during the past five years, from $2.7 million in 1994 to $1.9 million in 1999, not including income from the Adventure Pass. Fees from the $5 daily or $30 annual pass, required to enter four national forests in Southern California (San Bernardino, Cleveland, Angeles and Los Padres), offset a good chunk of that loss and are expected to increase the annual budget by 25 percent or more.
Income from the pass varies depending on the season, but the money increased dramatically during the second year. During the first 12 months of collections, from May 1997 through March 1998, the fee brought in $437,343. The program officially started June 14, 1997, but passes were sold in advance, starting in May of that year.
During the following nine months through December 1998, it brought in $596,556, largely because of increased awareness and compliance, officials said. That totals more than $1 million in a little more than 18 months.
The federal General Accounting Office reported late last year that nearly 20 percent of revenues generated by the Adventure Pass is being spent on collecting the fees, which raises the question of efficient use of fiscal resources.
For local forest managers, the fee has been the only way, in an era of shrinking budgets, to keep up with such mundane tasks as repairing and maintaining rest rooms, picking up garbage and clearing trails.
"It's been a godsend," said Gene Zimmerman, supervisor for the San Bernardino National Forest.
We understand the concern of forest supervisors, who are desperate to find some revenue to enable them to perform their mandate.
Yet the Adventure Pass is a bad solution. It is a fee that basically taxes citizens for using facilities and services they've already supposedly paid for through earlier taxes. This holds true for similar fees that are charged for both national and state parks.
This is imply unfair.
But Bono's bill is also an imperfect solution, though it has good intentions.
The bill applies only to the Forest Service, because that's the agency her constituents have complained about, Bono said. Under Bono's bill, other federal agencies that oversee public lands, including the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management, could continue charging fees.
Perhaps, a case could be made that parks are more intensively developed than other public lands (although the degree of development for visitor use varies widely from park to park), but most BLM sites, like national forests, have only minimal visitor service development.
There is no logic here. It is sound fiscal policy only to charge fees that people don't complain about?
Moreover, Bono's bill doesn't answer the question of how the Forest Service is supposed to get its job done in the face of shrinking budgets.
The Adventure Pass program will sunset in less than two years unless Congress acts to extend it. We'd be hapy to see it fade into the sunset, but other arrangements must be made to keep the Southland forests in good chape.
"Without the Adventure Pass, we'd just close the doors and call a bankruptcy attorney," Zimmerman said in a slightly tongue-in-cheek assessment.
Things may not be quite that dire, but as Allen Freemyer, staff director for the National Parks and Public Lands Subcommittee of the House Committee on Resources, put it, "The reality of the matter is, if we don't do something, (the public) will be upset. Facilities will be closed. Trails will be closed."
Instead of grandstanding, we'd like to see Congress come up with a hard, realistic plan to get the bills paid.
Rep. George Brown, D-San Bernardino, is willing to provide the other half of the equation that Bono's bill starts. Brown said he would support Bono's legislation, but he also supports increasing the Forest Service's budget to help reduce the need for the fees.
That's the kind of approach that ultimately needs to be put in place.