If a bill introduced in Congress this month is adopted, national forests in Colorado would get to keep millions of dollars in fees that ski areas pay annually for permits to operate on public lands.

“Every year we send a significant amount of money via these ski resort fees to the (U.S. Forest Service), which ultimately goes into the general treasury,” said Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse, whose congressional district includes eight ski areas from Loveland to Beaver Creek.

“In my view, and the view of many of my colleagues on a bipartisan basis, those fees ought to be kept local. We should have the ability at the federal level to recover those fees and send them back to the communities that are home to these incredible winter sports resorts,” he added.

Neguse and Sen. Michael Bennet are co-sponsoring the bill, known as the Ski Hill Resources for Economic Development — or SHRED — Act.

Over the past decade, ski areas in the U.S. collectively paid an average of $40 million annually in permit fees, according to forest service figures. For the past five years, more than $27 million of that came from Colorado resorts annually.

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