Eco-Watch Dialogues
8/10/99

To Fee or Not to Fee?
Dave Iverson

   Over the past couple of years, the US Forest Service "Recreation Fee Demo Program" has kicked off a firestorm of controversy. Or maybe it hasn't. It depends on who you talk to. By some measures we are witnessing continued and wholesale transfer of public interest to private. Those who believe this would say that it started long ago with timbering, grazing, and mining and now has come down to recreation -- what Scott Silver, Executive Director of Bend Oregon-based Wild Wilderness likes to call "Industrial Strength Wreckreation." By other measures -- perspectives held by some Forest Service recreation staffers and evidently by Forest Service top brass -- the Recreation Fee Demo Program has broad public support and has elicited only a small flurry of negative comments.

   The recreation fee demo program is an example of a policy issue where deeply held public values are juxtaposed one against another in ways that most of us, perhaps all of us, don't quite understand. Americans, at least some of us, want access to our public land to be free, unencumbered by the type crass commercialization that we face in most waking moments in our capitalistic culture. On the other hand, we American's haven't been averse to paying a small fee for developed campgrounds, even for entrance to some of the National Parks. So what is the big deal about recreation user fees, if in fact it is a big deal at all?

Short History of Fees and Fee Authority

   Since its inception the US Forest Service has collected fees for some uses while providing others uses free of charge, in an uneasy and continually controversial mix of fee and free. Most of what has been administered using fees -- commercial timber sales, grazing permits, special use permits for outfitters, etc. -- has suffered criticism that fees are either too high or too low (therefore subsidized) depending on which special interest sends the message. Typically "preservationist" and "environmentalist" groups send the message that commercial fees are too low, while "commercialist" groups send the message that fees are too high.

   Much of what has been administered for free has suffered criticism too: either that facilities are in disarray and/or that some special interests are getting unfair advantage because their users can afford to use, or use more often, land, buildings, boat launches, etc.that prove unaffordable to others who can not afford the means to even get to the forest yet alone to use facilities set up for those who have the automobiles, sport utility vehicles, boats, motorhomes, ATVs, etc. that the facilities were designed for. Some people believe that historically certain special interest groups have gained and held unfair advantage -- essentially privatizing public interest for commercial gain -- in part by saying that they at least pay for what they get as opposed to individuals, usually recreationists, who get their private interests met without paying at all. Of course this leaves open the argument as to whether it is appropriate to charge for commercial interest but not for private interest. The foregoing reasoning is based only on fairness and equity concerns regarding who pays and who benefits, and dismisses entirely any notions of a common good that accrues from people spending time in nature, far from the predominance of capital, markets, and particularly "marketing."

   Prior to Congressional approval for "Recreation Fee Demo" authority, Federal law prohibited charging fees for general access to national forests. Fees could only be charged for use of "facilities," (i.e. campgrounds, boat ramps, etc.). From this history, it seems clear that there was a very conscious value/policy decision that the national forests were to be a public commons, available to non-commercial users free of charge. The ability to charge fees for grazing, timber harvesting, and commercial recreation were specific statutory exceptions to the general rule that there would be no access fee for the national forests. One would think that there is some documented history concerning this provision of law. Whether or not such documentation can be found, it seems likely that free access to public lands was one of the many assurances provided to quell early opposition to the general notion of a national forest system. If nothing more, the idea of charging general admission fees is a radical departure from the early intentions of the creators of the national forest system. So we must expect that some will cry foul -- are crying foul -- at such a policy shift.

Recreation Fee Arguments Pro and Con

I've pulled together a few arguments "pro" and "con" regarding recreation user fees. I hope that I've captured the main themes.

In Defense of Recreation User Fees:

• Fees are an increasingly popular new means to finance government, in the "read my lips, no new taxes" era of government.
• Fees are a direct tax for use. People ought to pay for what they use.
• The US Forest Service has always relied on fees as part of its funding. The agency was set up that way. Increasingly, timber and grazing fees don't cut it in terms of funding extant organizational priorities -- timber fees especially have been declining for two decades -- and new sources of funding are needed.
• Recreation fees might actually be a "final line of defense" against the encroachment of "concessionaires" into the public domain. This argument says that if we collect recreation fees the Forest Service actually has the means to combat arguments that it is better to "outsource" recreation concessions -- granting virtual monopoly power to "concessionaires" and allowing further encroachment through time -- perchance big business encroachment -- into the "public" recreation domain.
• The US Park Service gets along arguably better than does the US Forest Service -- at least in terms of having money to support recreation pursuits -- in part because they have a fee system in place for some of their most popular attractions.

In Opposition to Recreation User Fees:

• There is a long-standing tradition, religious and otherwise, of "Forests Wild and Free" that militates against charging access fees. One strain of this argument asks, "If we can walk free in our cities but not in our forests, what is left of Wildness?"
• The American people and the Congress don't need yet another bureaucratic cash cow and all the problems that entails as to "oversight and accountability."
• It has been hard for the Forest Service and/or the Congress to regulate big-business timber, mining, and grazing interests in the national forests. Recreation fees help throw the doors open wide to embrace big-business recreation interests, yet another big-business group, by condoning "America for sale or rent" commercialization ideas, and promoting "mechanically assisted recreation" that many in big-business favor.
• Environmental Justice problems loom large when recreation fees are charged.

Fundamental Values Collide When Seeking to Impose General Access Fees

   In the main two fundamental American traditions, and the values that underlie them, collide when we speak of recreation fees charged for general access to the national forests.

Americans value "capitalism." We are embedded in a culture founded in part on principles of capitalism, private property, free enterprise, choice through the marketplace, and individual rights to use what one can pay for subject to prohibitions imposed through law and custom.

   Americans also value freedom from the marketplace in some aspects of our lives. Alongside our "capitalistic" cultural framing, we also have fundamental, traditional American values to fulfill some public purposes through services generally provided apart from the market. These include national defense, police and fire protection, education (particularly primary and secondary education), religion, use of public roadways, etc. We could append this list with "public access to government lands," which have been provided up to this point pretty much for free.

Like police and fire protection, there are exceptional cases were individuals are charged for services on public lands. Such "exceptional" charges are set up either to defray costs of "above and beyond normal" expenses or as a deterrent to abuse of systems provided at no direct cost to each individual or family. Obviously all such services cost money, but tradition and custom have selectively set some of them up apart from general market mechanisms.

   When National Parks began charging access fees, a precedent was set to begin to change one of these traditions. With US Forest Service recreation fee demo authority, some argue that we are now experimenting with moving the line further toward "capitalistic" traditions relative to "public lands access for free" tradition. At a minimum any such policy shift tends to highlight value clashes between these two dissimilar sets of values. No wonder at least some people are intensely aggravated at the prospect of general recreation access fees.

There have never been easy answers to the provision of services outside the market in capitalistic/democratic systems. Some observers claim that the easy answer is to "marketize" pretty much all but national defense. Some would even "marketize" that. But others vehemently disagree and believe that we've moved too far into the realm of markets already.

No Easy Answers

   With democracy, there can be no easy answers to substantive value problems where fundamental values are in conflict. In other systems of government there may be easy answers but there are other problems -- most often relating to abuse of power. This particular value clash over public access fees in the United States has been interesting, if painful to watch. My point in this note is only to "name" the conversation as one of values in conflict, and to suggest that each of the warring factions has not to date given credit to the other for legitimate arguments regarding American values. It continues to be "too bad" that we can not have a civil conversation on this issue. Or maybe we all think that we are fulfilling our conversational needs vicariously through the many Rec Fee Demo News Articles on the subject and in the limited public forums where the issue has been aired. My personal feeling is that such fare fails any true test of dialogue and there are better ways to engage in conversation that have not yet been tried. Where it will end is anyone's guess right now.

   If public lands access fees maintain their "toehold" at the national level, and it must be admitted that a toehold is all they've got right now, complications beyond "To Fee or Not to Fee" need to be addressed. First, if fees are to be charged what will be the basis? There is a long-standing tradition of subsidization, at least in the mind of many observers, at the federal-level for traditional commodities: timber, grazing forage, and minerals in particular.

    If general or specific access fees prevail, some recreationists will likely cry foul if they are charged what they consider to be "fair market value" for access while commodity interests continue on what these observers believe to be their "normal" course of subsidization. So the Forest Service is likely to have to grapple with this question for some time: "Why ought we to pay $2 to $5 a day for access to the national forests when permittees pay $1.35 for a month's grazing for a cow?" And the Forest Service will continue to grapple with the politically charged question, "Who ought to pay for infrastructure, especially roads, and maintenance costs to mitigate environmental damage."

   At bottom, only one thing seems clear. When dealing with questions of governance of public lands with both commercial and private users there are no easy answers. It gets even messier when we admit that most users are also owners with deeply held, conflicting cultural values.

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