The following editorial appeared in the Twin Falls, Idaho Times-News on February 7, 2003.
Get ready to open your wallets, outdoors lovers. President Bush's newest budget proposal could make forest fees a permanent government fixture.
The White House budget released last week aims to make recreational access fees permanent on federally managed lands, including a number of sites in the Sawtooth National Forest.
The biggest obstacle to permanent fees is the resistance coming from both sides of the political aisle. Many in Congress recognize that the fees represent double taxation. But Idaho's delegation still needs to show a united front.
Although Idaho Sen. Larry Craig opposed the fees in a Times-News op-ed piece last year, his recent statements that he will "keep an open mind," and that the program "has worked well in other states" are troubling.
Craig needs to join his colleague Sen. Mike Crapo and call the fees what they are -- double taxation. Idahoans feel that way, and so should their senior senator.
Genuine user fees -- for using developed amenities such as boat docks -- are a legitimate way to shift costs from taxpayers to those who use the facilities. But it's ridiculous for Smokey Bear to be a parking attendant for taxpaying Americans who merely want to walk in their own national forests.
Bush and Congress need to drop the entire fee demo program and fund national forests outright. The land still belongs to those who already pay for it.