The following editorial appeared in the Twin Falls, Idaho Times-News on February 10, 2004.
Our view: Congress can start now in dismantling the excessive taxation of forest access fees. Members of a U.S. Senate committee have an opportunity Wednesday to make a statement about the future of the fee demonstration program.
It's time Congress recognized the pay-for-play program on most of our national public lands is a failure -- and un-American to boot.
Members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will vote Wednesday on S. 1107, sponsored by Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., called the Recreational Fee Authority Act.
The bill calls for access fees to be made permanent in lands operated by the National Park Service. The bill mentions nothing about permanent access fees for lands managed by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Not yet, that is. Officials from the Departments of Agriculture and Interior are lobbying hard to make access fees permanent in all four agencies, as well as the Bureau of Reclamation.
Congress' best route would be to end fee demo once and for all. But if that doesn't happen, something good will come from passing Thomas' bill.
Thomas makes a reasonable pitch at permanent fees in national parks. Tourists and park users have become accustomed to park fees, which go toward trails, roads, signs, maps and other services.
But permanent fees for a walk in the forest, or common use of a trail, are different. There are fewer services with those lands, which are already subsidized by federal taxes. Paying those taxes, along with additional access fees, is nothing less than double taxation.
Fee opponents say separating the national park fees from other public lands puts the burden back on the BLM, Forest Service and other agencies. Now they must make their own case for access fees, rather than hang on the national parks' coattails.
Committee members also got a stark reminder about the excessive regulations under the fee demo program. On Friday, the Interior Department authorized strict provisions and major penalties for BLM land users who don't comply with access fees.
Under the new rules which go into effect April 6, BLM land users without valid access passes may be subject to a maximum $5,000 fine and six months in jail for noncompliance (as opposed to the current $100 penalty). All for not paying a $5 parking fee on a BLM trailhead.
What's apparent with this tougher law is that more of the public is refusing to pay the fee. So the government is growing longer fangs.
Senate committee members should be miffed that an agency has gone around Congress to gain more enforcement power. At a minimum, the committee should refuse any effort to make the fees permanent outside of national parks.
Idaho Sen. Larry Craig was leaning that way on Monday.
"We aren't going to attach other fees to this bill," said Dan Whiting, a spokesman for Craig. Whiting added that as chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, Craig wants to have hearings on the impact of forest fees.
"Clearly there's instances where the Forest Service didn't implement that program well, in the Sawtooths for example. He isn't interested in giving the Forest Service blanket authority to deny people access to public lands," Whiting said.
The Senate may be able to shoot down any effort to get that blanket authority this week. But those agencies will be back looking for it before long. The best way to stop them is to end the fee demo program -- and end it for good.