USFS & DOUBLE TAXATION "We are continually hearing people say they want an interagency pass," the USFS’s Thorpe said. "We are a step closer, and it is possible that we'll have that Northwest interagency pass available by next year." What Thorpe of the USFS forgets, is that we once had an "interagency pass". It was known as a citizen's right to access his or her public land and we paid for it with our taxes. What Thorpe forgets is that fee-demo was first sold to the American Public as being a way to pay for the specific services we use. But unless you happen to be amongst the filthy rich, chances are you're still paying nearly as much in taxes as you were before fee-demo was introduced. What's changed is that today you are no longer able to enjoy the benefits that previously came with paying your taxes. Today you must pay TWICE ... once on April 15th and once at the turnstile. As for the quote by Oregon State Parks' Tom Towslee who says: "If you want the whole nine yards, then pay the freight and eat it all." Towslee has encapsulated the concept of privatization perfectly. And, you'll notice that Towslee and Thorpe are speaking at crossed purposes. One gov't official is promoting the idea of an all-inclusive interagency pass -- a pass that is paid for like any other tax but which costs the average working person hundreds of times as much as he had previously paid for those same services through his taxes --- the other gov't official is promoting the commodification of every little human experience and then selling those experiences as products to those customers who can afford the price. What is it with these people? Are they idiots or are they monsters? You decide ... then decide what you're going to do to stop this madness. ANOTHER QUOTE TO REMEMBER"

A quote from one of the spiritual fathers of fee-demo, free-marketeer Randal O'Toole Question: Wouldn't recreation fees encourage the "Disneyfication" of national forests?

O'toole replies: I hope so....

Visionaries have been making the comparison between Wilderness, National Parks and Disneyland for a great many years. Today we're just about there. Sadly this is a future that could have been avoided.

SOME ENCOURAGING WORDS FROM NPCA

To some, perhaps to many, the efforts of non-profits and corporate donors to provide funding to supplement declining National Park budgets is seen as a wonderful thing --- something to be supported. How else, these people say, could the parks manage to provide the public with needed services? To others, the shift from public funding of public facilities to private funding is recognized as a privatization tool intended to further shift control of the commons from public to private management. What many seen to ignore is the fact that this money is rarely supplemental .... it is replacement money, replacing public funding of public facilities with private funding of facilities growing less public each day. What I found encouraging about the appended article is the hint of recognition of this problem by National Parks Conservation Association. NPCA has historically been a supported of virtually any and every park funding mechanism, from user fees to public-private partnerships. Perhaps with the privatization of our Crown Jewels now spiraling out of control, organizations that have sat on the sidelines will become active opponents to these privatization schemes.

VANDALIZING ILL-GOTTEN GAINS

Though I certainly am not going to condone the theft of forest fee receipts from fee-tubes, I would suggest there is a very easy way to eliminate this problem..... STOP charging these fees. These thefts not only result in lost revenues, they markedly increase the cost of collection and law enforsement. The true impact to the fee-demo program after including the costs of investigations and efforts to curb these thefts is bound to be far higher that the USFS and BLM are reporting. I would speculate that any theft-related investigations are being funded with Congressionally allocated tax dollars and not paid for with fee-revenues. I would suspect these added fee-demo program-related expenses are not properly accounted for by the federal agencies. And THAT, in my mind, would constitute a second theft --- one inflicted by the federal agencies upon all taxpayers. The cost of enforcement of the fee-demo program MUST be fully funded from fee-demo receipts --- anything else represents dishonest, deceptive, 'Enronesque' accounting. I hope the USFS and BLM are not engaged in such practices, though if one were to read the very most recent audit of the Forest Service performed by the General Accounting office, one might easily conclude that they are not properly accounting for the monies we provide to them. The GOA report is titled: "Little Progress on Performance Accountability Likely Unless Management Addresses Key Challenges." GAO-03-503, May 1, 2003. It can be found online at: http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-503 or http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d03503high.pdf for highlights. B4W AND OIA "We have 3.2 million acres ready. We ought to stop fighting about it and make it wilderness," Governor Leavitt said, adding that with OIA support, "we could establish wilderness as the crown jewel in our outdoor experience." It's worth noting that "Businesses for Wilderness" (B4W) is a PEW-funded project of OIA. It's worth nothing that the OIA is listed by the anti-environmental, pro-motorized wreckreation, American Recreation Coalition as a member organization. It's worth nothing that both the head of B4W (Myrna Johnson) and the President of OIA (Frank Hugelmeyer) are listed by the ARC as contact persons. www.funoutdoors.com/members.html It's important never to forget that OIA looks upon Wilderness as a vehicle for selling backpacks. They are, after all, nothing more than a trade association whose mission statement reads: "To promote and preserve the human-powered outdoor recreation industry." So if OIA and Leavitt somehow manage to cut a deal it may be good for the recreation industry but it will, I suggest, be bad for Wilderness. It might, however, succeed in designation some acres of land with the Wilderness logo so that they can be marketed and sold to consumers of outdoor experiences. The desire to build new trails is like the desire of a cancer cell to multiply. Here's an idea I had a few years back... The best wild wilderness experience, however, is often found in areas that are roadless, but not yet "put on the map" by being designated (developed with trails, promoted for use). These areas are the ones now being fought over. This is what the roadless initiative is all about. The idea is to "protect" these areas as "wildernessLITE" and to provide a range of recreational experiences that are wildernessLIKE. Motorized wreckreation, mt. biking and similar activities will be permitted because, in the new way of looking at wildness, "wildLIKE" is good enough. MORE TRAILS MEAN MORE MONEY IN MOAB! Here’s an excerpt from a story that appeared recently in The Salt Lake Tribune by Lisa Church...

MOAB -- A group of businesses here is banking on mountain bikers to boost the area's flagging tourist economy. The nonprofit Moab Trails Alliance is working with the Trail Mix Committee, a county-sponsored citizens' group dedicated to improving and expanding the area's non-motorized trail system. The plan is to develop interconnecting single-track trails that will enable cyclists to ride in and around Moab and connect with existing outlying bicycle routes while avoiding motorized traffic. The group's motto -- "More Trails Equal More Sales" -- says it all, said executive director Kimberly Schappert. "It's an issue of wanting to keep [cyclists] coming here as well." The group also hopes to make business owners aware of the economic impact mountain bikers can have. Many of today's cyclists ride mountain bikes that cost thousands of dollars, and they are likely to stay several days in hotels and spend money in restaurants and shops. "The old joke of them coming here with a dirty T-shirt and a five-dollar bill and not changing either one -- that just doesn't apply anymore," she said. "These people put a lot of money into the community. And they're low-impact tourists. They come because they love the country, and they really take care of it."

A RESPONSE TO THE LAST ZEPHYR I was reading the most recent issue of the Zephyr and noted with interest both Stiles’ mention of Peter Metcalf on page 2 plus Frank Hugelmeyer's oun letter on pg 35. Zephyr readers may not know that Frank is President of the Outdoor Industry Association and that Peter is a major wheel within Frank's association (in addition to being the President of Black Diamond). In other words, readers of the Zephyr might have benefited by being able to appreciate the direct connection between pages 2 and 35. Below is a current webpage from Black Diamond that I think Zephyr readers will find of interest. It is a letter to Gov. Leavitt written jointly by Peter and Frank.... and this is the type of BS these guys are spouting in their letter: "Wild and undeveloped places are the economic backbone of the outdoor recreation industry. Policymakers must recognize the economic values of public lands as a top priority, not a secondary consideration, when it comes to managing our public lands." THIS is a quote that these guys should remember: "Economics cannot save the wilderness. The wild may depend on funding from the nations' budgets, but it cannot be quantified or reduced to number -crunching. The safeguarding of wild places cannot be financially justified based on cost - benefit analyses. But how dare we put a pricetag on those wild places that remain in the world, whose value is inestimable?" -- David Rothenberg

MORE FEE-DEMO ABUSE "If we subtracted fees out, we would have less money than we had 10 years ago..." The US Forest Service Region 6 (Oregon/Washington) allocated recreation budget is, if you look at the numbers, less today than it was 10 years ago. When corrected for inflation, today's recreation budget is down by approximately 35% compared to what it had been when Fee-Demo was introduced in 1996. Fee-Demo, like all the new fees springing up, is shifting the source of funding of public services from income/corporate taxes directly to users. Fee-Demo is NOT providing genuinely increased/supplemental funding. Fee-Demo is simply making up for a small portion of the shortfalls that have resulted from budget reductions. Fee-Demo, like all such fees, is a mechanism for funding tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy while shifting the burden of funding government from the rich to the working class and the poor. And as Fee-Demo activists have said since the beginning, another purpose of these budget reductions is to bring about privatization. I expect that many of the public employees who are about to be replaced with contract-labor have figured this out. I only hope they'll now become active opponents of Fee-Demo and similar privatization schemes. Perhaps by working together with fee opponents it will still be possible to save not only these people's jobs but to preserve their specialized skills. Those specialized skills, it turns out, are important to Wilderness management. If we lose them, we may soon find chainsaw-wielding, private trail-crews operating in Wilderness. The justification for this clearly illegal intrusion upon Wilderness will likely go like this: "We have no options - we do not have sufficient money with which to manage Wilderness using Forest Service employees and non-mechanized means." What no one will say is: "We gave away the money we did have as tax cuts tothe rich." Scott