The end of users' fees?

[dt_3pin]

FORESTS: Magistrate's ruling could mean end of hiking user fees

A federal magistrate's dismissal of charges against an Arizona woman for failing to pay forest use fees is the first legal challenge against the fees and could mean the end of them across the country.

 

Last week, Magistrate Charles Pyle dismissed charges by the Forest Service against Christine Wallace, a Tuscon, Ariz., resident who challenged two $30 tickets she received for not paying the required parking and hiking feels to use Mount Lemmon.

 

In his ruling, Pyle said that the Forest Service went beyond the bounds of a 2004 law when it charged fees for parking to use a trail, for camping outside developed campgrounds and for picnicking in general. The challenge is the first against park fees since the 2004 law was passed restricting the Forest Service's ability to charge for parking and hiking.

 

"The Forest Service has not carried out the law," said Kitty Benzar, co-founder of the Western Slope No Fee Coalition, based in Durango, Colo. "We've hesitated until now to use the word illegal because only courts can decide what is legal, but now I feel free to use the word illegal in regards to [the fee on] Mount Lemmon."

 

Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey testified last year before Congress that about 4,505 national forest sites across the country had been charging fees until the 2004 law passed and that 435 such sites had fees eliminated because of the new law's restrictions.

 

Last week's ruling could set a legal precedent from which to challenge more fees in more parks, which in turn could mean a loss of funding for the parks. Mount Lemmon raised $700,000 per year in fees that were later used to repair and upgrade picnic areas, campgrounds and toilets on the mountain (Tony Davis, Arizona Daily Star, Sept. 13).

 

Click here to view the ruling.

 

[faster_than_you]

Pipe dream... But a good one...

[ivan]

i'll believe it when i see it - the status quo of me not paying and usually not getting ticketed has been bearable, but it'd be nice to see parks getting the funding they need from my taxes instead of the fawk'n sand-people

[sobo]

Are we talking about the same fee as the NW F$%#ing Forest Pass? If so, I applaud this decision.

 

EDIT: Read about halfway through the court papers link and found that the Fee Demo Program was also "on trial" in this case, so it would appear that we now have precedent in case law for striking this phuqin thing down.

Edited September 14, 2006 by sobo

[lI1|1!]

it means nothing. these court decisions rejecting the constitutionality of user fees have been surfacing for years with no change in law or policy.

 

 

 

in other news Interior Official Assails Agency for Ethics Slide

 

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

 

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 — The Interior Department’s chief official responsible for investigating abuses and overseeing operations accused the top officials at the agency on Wednesday of tolerating widespread ethical failures, from cronyism to cover-ups of incompetence.

 

“ Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior ,” charged Earl E. Devaney, the Interior Department’s inspector general, at a hearing of the House Government Reform subcommittee on energy.

 

“I have observed one instance after another when the good work of my office has been disregarded by the department,” he continued. “Ethics failures on the part of senior department officials — taking the form of appearances of impropriety, favoritism and bias — have been routinely dismissed with a promise ‘not to do it again.’ ”

 

The blistering attack was part of Mr. Devaney’s report on what he called the Interior Department’s “bureaucratic bungling” of oil and gas leases signed in the late 1990’s, mistakes that are now expected to cost the government billions of dollars but were covered up for six years.

 

[snip]

 

 

 

BUT THERE'S NO NEED TO BE PARANOID. keep moving, keep moving, nothing to see here.

[shapp]

I read the decision, It has nothing to do with the constitution as T1/1! suggests, but with the interpretation of plain language of statue enacted by the congress. The bottom line is that if you are parking at a trailhead that is not developed (i.e. has no have all of these amenities for the USFS to have specific authority to charge a fee: bathroom, picnic tables, interpretave area, security, and some other amenities) then the USFS is specifically precluded from charging to park there and hike on the trail. Furthermore, the language of the regs is clear, the regs specifically gives "no authorization to charge a fee for using a trail"

[flyingpig]

use me, you don't have to pay me a dime. just don't leave a trace.

[chelle]

I read the decision, It has nothing to do with the constitution as T1/1! suggests, but with the interpretation of plain language of statue enacted by the congress. The bottom line is that if you are parking at a trailhead that is not developed (i.e. has no have all of these amenities for the USFS to have specific authority to charge a fee: bathroom, picnic tables, interpretave area, security, and some other amenities) then the USFS is specifically precluded from charging to park there and hike on the trail. Furthermore, the language of the regs is clear, the regs specifically gives "no authorization to charge a fee for using a trail"

 

Does the trailhead have to have more than one stinky outhouse (with no TP)? If so most of the trails in the PNW qualify as free places to park, even though they require a forest service pass.

[philfort]

I thought the NW Forest Pass requirement had already been removed at undeveloped trailheads around here... isn't this old news?

I know you don't require them on Cascade River road anymore, nor at the end of the Middle Fk Snoqualmie road.

[chelle]

There are a few trailheads off I-90 with nothing more than a trailhead map board, and some with a pit toilet, that still require a forest pass.

[sobo]

...and a shitpot more off SR 410 and US 12 on the east side of the crest. The sooner the NW Fucking-us Pass is kaput, the better!

 

philfort: I may be wrong, but IIRC, Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH) got it hitched onto the 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill as a rider at the last minute in late 2004. The bill was needed to keep the government operating (and the Iraq War going, among other things ), and that smarmy little shit got it tacked it on as his "legacy" to us all. Bastard doesn't even HAVE any public lands in his district! The name was changed to the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA), but it essentially is the same old shitpile as Fee Demo.

 

It's 4:20, I gotta go now...