Survey: Do You Support Recreation Fees on Federal Public Land?
The Access Fund wants to know what you think about the often-controversial issue of recreational use fees. Please take a few minutes to fill out the following survey. Your answers will help us accurately represent your interests at the Federal level. Click here: www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm....
The Access Fund has long represented the voice of climbers in debates over access fees to recreate on federal public land. Over the years we've advocated for the interests of the climbing community when Congress has considered legislation that would impose fees on climbers. First, there was authority under the Land and Water Conservation Act and, then, the controversial Fee Demo Program. A few years ago Congress passed Federal Lands Recreational Enhancement Act—also known as the Recreation Access Tax (or RAT)—and now a bill has been introduced into Congress that would repeal all fee collection authority: the Fee Repeal and Expanded Access Act of 2007 (see http://crapo.senate.gov/media/newsreleases/release_full...).
The Access Fund supports use fees on public lands in many situations, such as where services are provided or agency budgets are substantially burdened by recreational access. However, the Access Fund opposes charging recreational use fees for access to wilderness areas and other backcountry sites where administrative support is neither required nor desired by recreationists and where recreational impacts do not significantly impose on agency budgets or degrade the environment. In other words, there should be no "pay-to-play" where "playing" costs the agencies nothing. The Access Fund also opposes such fees when inequitably applied to climbers and other wilderness and backcountry users.