Congress approved the 2001 Department of the
Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (HR 4578) on October 5th. The
President has agreed to sign the bill into law. Section 336
found within this bill extends the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program (Fee
Demo) one more year, through September 30, 2002.
The bill also contained three other provisions relating to Fee Demo. Section 112, which loosely applies to Fee Demo, allows the Park Service to provide reduced entrance fees for local traffic. Section 314 prevents the use of Fee Demo funds from being used to construct a permanent building that would cost more than $500,000 without Congressional approval. Section 334 guarantees that concessionaire operators of Forest Service facilities would not be displaced by the Forest Service. This makes permanent the transfer of Forest Service facilites to private enterprise that took place over the last decade as a result of budget cutbacks.
On Monday, October 2nd, the Natural History
Museum in Santa Barbara, California held a public debate on the Adventure Pass
program and the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program (Fee Demo). Alasdair Coyne
of the Keep the Sespe Wild Committee, David James of the Forest Preservation
Society of Southern California, and Jeff Pine of the National Forest Defense
Alliance represented the opponents of Fee Demo while Los Padres National Forest
Supervisor Jeanine Derby and Rich Tobin of the Los Padres Forest Service
represented the proponents of Fee Demo. This was the second debate in Southern
California in the last two years between Fee Demo opponents and the Forest
Service.
The Fee Demo opponents largely addressed the commercialization resulting from Fee Demo, including the corporate agenda paper trail of the recreation industry, while the Forest Service oftend expressed the usefulness of the extra revenues that Fee Demo provides. The Forest Service also expressed its belief that Congress should make the program permanent. The audience was decidedly in the camp of the Fee Demo opponents, often grumbling at the statements of the Forest Service and enthusiastically applauding the statements of the Fee Demo opponents.
The Forest Service held up well under a well documented barrage of facts regarding the commercial agenda of the recreation industry, led by the American Recreation Coalition (ARC). Rich Tobin at one point stated, "One of the concerns that I often hear...is that the Adventure Pass will lead to commercial development. I believe actually just the opposite is true." Later, Supervisor Derby responded to a question from a man in the audience about Disney's agenda with Fee Demo calling it "a fantasy that's been developed by the opposition." However, when questioned further, she said, "It's true that many corporations in this country helped design the program." She stated that she was not aware of any involvement of Disney in the Adventure Pass program. This contradicts Derrick Crandall, president of the ARC, who testified at a Congressional hearing on Fee Demo in 1998 that the ARC had "arranged for top marketing and communications executives from Disney, REI and other companies to work with the Enterprise Forest fee team in the design and implementation of that project." The Enterprise Forest is the Forest Service's name for the Adventure Pass program area.
Another interesting exchange occured when the Fee Demo opponents asked why the votes of four local Boards of Supervisors and legislation introduced to end Fee Demo had not been mentioned in any of the Forest Service's reports to Congress on Fee Demo. In response, Rich Tobin said, "it's simply not appropriate to provide political viewpoints in the report." A man from the audience immediately shouted out: "It's the citizens viewpoint, not a political viewpoint!"