{"id":1807,"date":"2008-03-08T13:22:26","date_gmt":"2008-03-08T21:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2008\/03\/08\/user-fees-rising-on-federal-lands\/"},"modified":"2008-03-08T13:22:26","modified_gmt":"2008-03-08T21:22:26","slug":"user-fees-rising-on-federal-lands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2008\/03\/08\/user-fees-rising-on-federal-lands\/","title":{"rendered":"User fees rising on federal lands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/03\/07\/us\/07fees.html?_r=1&#038;adxnnl=1&#038;oref=slogin&#038;adxnnlx=1205011157-Zs9wFurHcDFSC\/WfJp8M3A&#038;pagewanted=all\">Fire-fighting costs are the culprit, the New York Times reports.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cAs fire costs increase, I\u2019ve got less and less money for other programs,\u201d said Dave Bull, superintendent of the Bitterroot National Forest here in Hamilton. The charge for access to Lake Como, a popular boating destination in the national forest, will be increased this year, to $5 from $2.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/reference\/timestopics\/organizations\/f\/forest_service\/index.html?inline=nyt-org\" title=\"More articles about Forest Service, U.S.\">Forest Service<\/a> collected $60 million in fees nationwide, nearly double the $32 million in 2000. The <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/reference\/timestopics\/organizations\/b\/bureau_of_land_management\/index.html?inline=nyt-org\" title=\"More articles about Bureau of Land Management, U.S.\">Bureau of Land Management<\/a>, the country\u2019s biggest landlord, also doubled its revenues over the same period, to more than $14 million from $7 million. The agency projects revenues from the fees will grow an additional $1 million this year.<\/p>\n<p>Though the new and increased fees still account for a small part of the agencies\u2019 overall budgets, they have riled elected officials and environmental and recreation groups across the West. The critics complain that there has been insufficient public involvement in the changes \u2014 imposed at hundreds of locations over the past three years or so \u2014 and suggest that they reflect a significant shift in federal policy to a market-based approach from one of managing sites for public benefit.<\/p>\n<p> Unlike the <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/reference\/timestopics\/organizations\/n\/national_park_service\/index.html?inline=nyt-org\" title=\"More articles about National Park Service, U.S.\">National Park Service<\/a>, which has routinely charged admission and other fees at its parks, the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies have historically been less aggressive in imposing such assessments. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur government wants to charge us $5 or $10 to go for a walk in the woods \u2014 our woods,\u201d said Kitty Benzar of the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition, in Durango, Colo. \u201cWe don\u2019t think it\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Thanks to Miguel Marcos for sending the link along. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fire-fighting costs are the culprit, the New York Times reports. \u201cAs fire costs increase, I\u2019ve got less and less money for other programs,\u201d said Dave Bull, superintendent of the Bitterroot National Forest here in Hamilton. The charge for access to&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2008\/03\/08\/user-fees-rising-on-federal-lands\/\">Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}