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Coalition seeks end to RAT fee Posted: Wednesday, Jul 13, 2005 - 08:29:24 am PDT By R.J. COHN Staff writer
SANDPOINT -- A Sandpoint-based group fighting to keep the U.S. Forest Service from collecting fees at recreation sites around the country challenged Sen. Larry Craig to become a national hero by helping stamp out the RAT -- a legislation that authorizes fees on public lands. Armed with a petition bearing 420 signatures of Sandpoint residents opposed to paying recreation access fees, members of the North Idaho No-RAT (Recreation Access Tax) Coalition last week implored the Idaho senator to help repeal the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act."If you can get the RAT repealed, you will be a hero in Idaho and the rest of the country, too," coalition member Ken Fischman told Craig at at his meeting at North Idaho College in Coeur d'Alene "I will consider heroism," said Craig, who unsuccessfully fought to prevent the legislation from being added as a rider to the 2004 Omnibus Appropriations bill eventually passed by Congress.
"The practice of charging fees at recreation sites on public lands around the country has simply not worked well," contends coalition member Lanie Johnson. "A 2002 GAO study proved it was not efficient. The result showed that the Forest Service spent more on collections and enforcement of fees than it took in." Despite last months news that the Forest Service planned to remove fees from more than 500 recreation sites across the country, the group maintains the number is merely a drop in the bucket. The reduction amounts to just a 1 percent decrease in fee sites in the Rocky Mountain west; nationally, it's only a 3 percent drop. "Lots of people in the West don't like having the federal government tell them what to do with public lands," Johnson added. "That's why we're working toward legislation sponsoring a state resolution against the RAT like other states have." Both Johnson and Fischman believe that if RAT is established, it will be too late to keep public lands from becoming private lands. They're hopeful that Craig -- who told them that land agencies haven't yet learned how to be business-like -- will help sponsor a repeal of the fee program he initially opposed. "Why not stick it as a rider onto the next General Appropriations bill just they way they did with the RAT?" Fischman suggested. "Our forests are our heritage as Americans, and we want to be free to walk in them and to pass that blessing on to our children and grandchildren." POST YOUR OPINION
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Bonner County Daily Bee
P.O. Box 159 / Sandpoint, Idaho 83864 / 208-263-9534
Bonner County Daily Bee Online is updated at 10am PST.