Robbed by RAT's

It sounded okay when Congress authorized it in 1996. The few sportsmen and environmentalists who even noticed vacillated between disinterest and mild approval. Starved for funds, as always, the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service would charge the public new or increased fees for accessing its land to fish, hunt, boat, drive, park, camp, walk. . . . It was going to be an "experiment"--a three-year pilot program. That's why it was called the "Fee Demonstration."

Americans were used to paying entrance fees at national parks and wildlife refuges. But after Fee Demo was extended through 2001 they expressed outrage about what they came to call the Recreation Access Tax (RAT) on national forests and BLM land. Late in 2004 RAT was extended yet again--this time for 10 years--when Fee Demo was replaced with the Recreation Enhancement Act, a law that empowers the four agencies to charge even more access fees.

Scott Silver, director of the Bend, Oregon-based Wild Wilderness--one of the very few environmental groups that has sounded the alarm--lives two blocks from the Deschutes River, world famous for its steelhead. "At the end of town the Deschutes National Forest begins," he says. "Upriver for maybe five miles is what the Forest Service now calls a High Impact Recreation Area, and I cannot go anywhere there in a car without having paid. An access road runs parallel to the river, and there are about three perpendicular roads to it. You may be a mile away, but as soon as you enter one of those perpendicular roads you're confronted by a sign that says 'Entering Fee Area.' I use a kayak. You're not going to carry a kayak a mile."

"These fees have been very controversial to say the least," comments Rick Swanson, the Forest Service's respected river and wetlands point person. "Look at the reaction you get when you talk about saltwater licenses. The whole gauntlet of, 'Hell no I won't pay,' to 'Yeah we really need to kick in more.' It's the same thing with fees. Some people realize what's out there and what's at stake and how we're having trouble trying to provide recreation for the American public. The money is getting to the ground."

Swanson's saltwater-license analogy is especially apt, but not in the way he imagines. The real benefit of saltwater licenses has not been revenue for management but representation in management decisions for recreational interests (in this case anglers). The same is true of RAT. But what recreational interests are we talking about?

Fee Demonstration and the Recreation Enhancement Act were written by and for the motorized-recreation industry. There was no Congressional or public involvement. Both RAT laws were slipped through as midnight riders tacked to appropriation bills because the industry knew they couldn't survive open debate.

Sponsoring Fee Demo via a cost-share partnership with the Forest Service was the powerful American Recreation Coalition (ARC) whose membership is comprised mainly of manufacturers of ATV's, motorized trailbikes, jetskis and RV's. And joining ARC in lobbying aggressively for both RAT laws have been the National Off Highway Vehicle Coalition, the National Snowmobile Manufacturers Association and such odious "wise-use" fronts for the motorized recreational industry as the Blue Ribbon Coalition.

As a result, anglers now have fewer places to find quietude and wildness or listen to birdsong or the music of rushing water or wind through forest canopies. Hike into any remote stream or pond in non-wilderness and you're likely to be assaulted by the screech and whine of internal-combustion engines. Pretty discouraging when you've invested two or three hours, and the guys on the machines have invested 10 minutes.

Today ATV's account for five percent of all visits to national forests and grasslands. Ninety percent of BLM lands are now open to motorized recreation; the agency even sponsors races. And the machines themselves have grown from little farmyard putt-putts to monsters with double seats, megashocks, and 700-cubic-centimeter engines.

Recreational vehicles need to be regulated, not banned. "You're not going to get rid of them," says Scott Silver. "But you can't let these agencies look at motorized recreational industries and call them 'partners' and 'stakeholders.' That's nonsense. The environmental community is under the delusion that motorized recreation is somehow going to be managed with these user fees. No. It's going to be used and abused to give the industries the best advantage they can negotiate. Because we don't understand reality, they're negotiating better then we are."