Congress has heard, loud and clear, that the
Recreational Fee Demonstration Program hasn’t worked. But it
still can’t quite bring itself to call an end to it.
Sen. Larry Craig supports fees only for developed
campgrounds and boat ramps. Those fees have never been
controversial. What he fails to address is the extra wrinkle that
fee retention brings to the picture. What fee retention actually
does is to subsidize the mentality of “build it and they will pay.”
It puts the land-management agencies into the empire-building
business.
The General Accounting Office has repeatedly
identified a scandalous level of fiscal mismanagement and
irresponsibility by the land-management agencies. It has called on
Congress for years for more oversight.
Sen. Craig’s
solution? Appoint “recreation fee advisory committees” to decide
where and what fees should be charged. How could substituting
nonelected committees (appointed by the very agencies they are
supposed to advise) for nonelected bureaucrats be considered an
improvement?
If Sen. Craig truly believes in a limited
permanent fee program and if he supports fees for campgrounds and
other direct services only, then any fee legislation should allow
only those services. There should be no gray areas that would
require politically influenced, agency-appointed advisory
committees.
If any fee legislation is needed at all, it
should offer real solutions to the problems facing our
land-management agencies. Congress should provide a direct avenue
for appropriated funds to reach our local land managers, address
agency accountability, and mandate that agency priorities put
maintenance and operations first. Otherwise, just end it. Simple.
Robert Funkhouser
Norwood, Colorado
The author is president of the Western Slope No-Fee
Coalition.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best solutions.
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