SUMMIT COUNTY — After years of back and forth debate over federal pay-to-play fees, the battle has shifted to the U.S. Senate.

Two U.S. senators — Max Baucus, D-Montana, and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho — introduced a bill last month that would repeal the fee program. Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar has expressed general support for the measure, according to Kitty Benzar of the West Slope No Fee Coalition.

Other Colorado legislators weren’t prepared to comment on the bill yet, although Republican Sen. Wayne Allard previously stated his opposition to an earlier version of the fee program.

It’s not clear how much support the measure has in Congress. Benzar said that Baucus and Crapo are seeking more co-sponsors for the bill across party lines.
Moving the debate into the national political arena is vindication for groups like the West Slope No Fee Coalition and Wild Wilderness. They’ve been fighting what they call the Recreation Access Tax (RAT) for a decade, claiming it will lead to increased commercialization and privatization of public lands.

“It resets the clock back to 1996,” said Wild Wilderness executive director Scott Silver.

The fee program created an incentive for Congress to not keep up with providing adequate funding for public land management, Silver said.

Recreation fees generate about $50 million annually for the Forest Service and other federal agencies. As currently written, the measure (S.B. 2438) doesn’t include any additional appropriations that would replace fee revenues, and that might be its fatal flaw. The bill’s co-sponsors, U.S. Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Mike Crapo (R-ID), have said they will fight for increased appropriations, but given the current fiscal climate, that could be a tough battle.

Benzar said that, as chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, Baucus could probably find the money to replace the fee revenue.

If the Senate bill passes, fees would only be allowed at developed campgrounds, swim sites and boat launch facilities. Fees would specifically be prohibited for roads, overlook sites, scenic drives, toilets and picnic facilities, as well as for dispersed and undeveloped camping and recreation.

Launched as the so-called fee demo program in 1996, the fees were initially limited to a two-year experiment at 100 sites around the country. Almost all the money collected stays at the site for on-the-ground improvements.

The program was subsequently expanded and extended without much public input. Public opposition grew, and when fee demo came up for another extension in 2004, lawmakers replaced it with the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA). That measure was attached as a rider to a must-pass spending bill in a move that drew howls of outrage from fee opponents.

At issue in Summit County is recreational access to camping and day use facilities at Green Mountain Reservoir, as well as the winter grooming and management program at Vail Pass.

The fees have enabled the Dillon Ranger District to increase staffing and upgrade facilities at Green Mountain Reservoir. At Vail Pass, the revenues pay for grooming, trail maps and enforcement.

“Without that program (fees) up there, the entire area would be a snowmobile area,” said Chuck Ogilby, a Vail Pass Task Force members who represents non-motorized interests.

It costs about $150,000 annually to staff the area with rangers and groom snowmobile trails, keeping the peace between snowmobilers and non-motorized users.

Opponents of the program consider the fees a double whammy, claiming that taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay a surcharge to access public lands. They claim the fee program was launched without public input and without formal hearings in Congress.

On the other hand, supporters say that site-specific fees are a legitimate way to pass management costs directly to users of a certain area. Locally, the Green Mountain program was developed with plenty of input from users. Not everyone supported the fees, said Ken Waugh, recreation staff officer on the Dillon Ranger District. But in the end, people recognized that, without the fees, the area probably couldn’t be maintained up to Forest Service standards.

The agency collected at $90,000 at Green Mountain Reservoir last year. Another $50,000 came from a regional Forest Service fee pot to help pay for improvements, Waugh said.

The Vail Pass program is limping along under the current fees, as the Forest Service is barely able to keep up with the needed services at the high-use area along I-70.

The agency would like to increase fees at both sites. Waugh said a detailed management plan for Green Mountain Reservoir has been submitted to the regional Forest Service for review and will be presented to citizen advisory committee for approval sometime next year.

The plan would keep day-use fees for Green Mountain at $ 5 but raise overnight camping fees from $5 to $10. The price of a season pass would go from $35 to $65, Waugh said. By collecting up to $160,000 annually, the Forest Service could keep the area fully staffed with six rangers during the busy summer season. Under that tentative budget, the Forest Service could also put about $5,000 to $10,000 annually into more improvements.

The Green Mountain and Cataract Lake areas are entirely run by fees, Waugh said. Losing the ability to charge fees would force the Dillon Ranger District to make some hard choices.

“The belt’s pretty tight already,” Waugh said, explaining that the Forest Service would either have to come up with some other funding mechanism, or decide to close facilities or cut services.

Waugh’s primary question about the pending Senate bill mirrored the biggest question floating around — if the fee program goes away, where will the money come from?

Waugh said that, with stakeholder involvement, the fee program has worked reasonably well at Green Mountain, and users of the area have seen better management and upgraded facilities.

But all things being equal, Waugh said that, if Congress can come up with a way to fund management and maintenance without fees, it wouldn’t hurt.

“It would make our job easier if we didn’t have to collect and enforce fees,” he concluded.

To see the full text of the bill and track its progress, go to http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-2438.

The U.S. Forest Service posts information about the fee program, including a breakdown of collections and expenditures here:
http://www.fs.fed.us/passespermits/about-rec-fees.shtml.

Bob Berwyn can be reached at (970) 331-5996, or at bberwyn@summitdaily.com.