On November 5, President Bush signed the Fiscal
Year 2002 Interior Appropriations Bill
(HR 2217) after Congress worked out a compromise between the
House and Senate versions of the bill. The compromise included an extension of
the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program (Fee Demo) by another two years.
Fortunately, this is not the four year extension that President Bush originally requested and was passed in the House version of the bill. However, it is greater than the one year extension that recreation groups recommended to Congress and much greater than the elimination of the program that we in the anti-Fee Demo movement want.
The program is now set to expire on September 30, 2004.
In addition to the two year extension of Fee Demo, the bill includes a provision for the removal of the cap on the number of projects permissible under Fee Demo. Previously, each agency (Forest Service, Park Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management) was authorized to implement no more than 100 Fee Demo projects.
With the removal of the limit to the number of projects each agency can implement, in the next two years Americans may see what a permanent version of Fee Demo may look like.