congress debates user fee program

Congress debates user-fee program

http://www.summitdaily.com/apps/pbcs...9210105&Ref=AR

A camper sets up a tent at the Heaton Bay Campground on the shores of
Dillon Reservoir recently. Campers pay to use Forest Service
campgrounds; now recreationists also must pay fees at some trailheads
and parking areas.
Summit Daily file photo/Brad Odekirk


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


By Jane Stebbins
September 21, 2003


SUMMIT COUNT - U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis Wednesday headed up a hearing
in the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health to address the pros
and cons of user fees in popular national forest service lands.

McInnis, who represents Colorado's Third Congressional District, has
long favored use fees such as those in place at Cataract Lakes and
Vail Pass in Summit County. There, users must pay a nominal fee to use
the area. The Forest Service needs to collect the fees to make up the
difference between its operating costs and what Congress allocates the
agency each year.

Fee collections at Cataract Lake average $19,000 a year; Vail Pass
users contribute an average of $90,000 to $100,000 each year to Forest
Service coffers. Under the terms of the program, a minimum of 80
percent of the funds generated at each site helps pay for amenities -
restrooms, trail maintenance and picnic sites - in that area.

The program has been in place on a temporary basis since 1996, and
Congress has extended it four times. It will expire next year, if
Congress decides not to extend it again.

Wednesday, McInnis summoned program supporters and detractors to the
hearing to help Congress decide if and how the program should be
extended again.

Opponents of the fee demo program argue that people should have free
access to public lands, that charging them represents double taxation
because taxpayers already pay for the upkeep of public lands, and that
charging such fees precludes low-income people from participating in
recreational activities on public lands.

Doug Young, district policy director for public lands and natural
resources for Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., told a group of citizens last
week that the Forest Service wouldn't have these problems if Congress
would fully fund the agency.

Udall, who voted last July to remove the provision that would extend
the fee demo program for another two years - it lost, 184-241 -
believes the process itself is flawed. The proposal to extend the fee
program is a rider on an appropriations bill, and he feels it should
be addressed in the resources committee, which has jurisdiction over
such issues.

Some opponents have noted that McInnis has always supported the
program.

"I have made it no secret over the years that I support the user pay
concept, provided the fee is reasonable and that it is collected only
in certain developed or high-use areas," McInnis said in the hearing.
"The Forest Service and other land management agencies have enormous
financial needs, particularly in the maintenance backlog department,
which appropriated dollars just aren't meeting. That is unfortunate,
but it is reality. Given this acute need, it is only fair that forest
users help partially defray some of the additional costs associated
with their use."

In 2001, the Forest Service's fee demo projects raised $35 million.
About one-third of the revenues were spent on "enhancing facilities,
protecting resources and enforcing laws," according to a General
Accounting Office (GAO) report McInnis cited at the hearing. Another
29 percent was spent on visitor services and operations like trash
collection. Twenty-one percent was spent on maintenance.

The remaining 17 percent was spent on collecting the fees, the GAO
concluded. Additional funds pay the partial salaries and benefits of
people employed at least part-time to collect fees.

That, too, has McInnis concerned.

"I'm concerned that, unlike the Park Service, the Forest Service has
done little to ensure that fee revenues are spent as a first priority
to pay down its mammoth recreation maintenance backlog," he said. "I
am troubled that the Forest Service appears to be spending between $15
million and $20 million of fee-generated and appropriated dollars
administering a program that brings in only about $35 million a year."