In its biggest political coup to date, a group fighting the backcountry fees charged at Great Smoky Mountains National Park has gotten the backing of the Tennessee State House of Representatives.
In a proclamation adopted April 9, the House expressed its "opposition to the imposition of any backcountry camping fees in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that are not directly associated with the use of amenities or a commercial purpose and strongly urge an immediate appeal of any such imposed fee."
Previously, the Knox County (Tennessee) Commission, as well the commissions in Bradley and Blount counties in Tennessee and Swain County in North Carolina, condemned the fee and called for its repeal.
The backcountry fee of $4 per night per person, with a $20 per person cap per trip, took effect February 13. It is intended by park officials to help streamline and improve the backcountry permitting process and heighten the presence of rangers in the backcountry.
Pinched by an inadequate budget and unable to charge an entrance fee for any of the roughly 9 million yearly visitors, park officials say they see no way of improving visitor services and protecting backcountry resources without charging users who spend the night in the woods.
The park can't charge an entrance fee because the state of Tennessee, when it agreed to transfer land to the federal government for the park, essentially forbade it.
"By condemning and calling for a repeal of this hugely unpopular and specious tax on backcountry users, the State of Tennessee has proven its intent to provide a voice for citizens that was ignored by the National Park Service as evidenced in the public comments that tallied 18-1 in opposition to the fee," said a statement from Southern Forest Watch, a non-profit group organized to lobby for the fee's repeal.
Comments
Still no one here will address the dishonest and manipulation of data that is driving this issue. You guys always harp back to the "poor" underfunded National Parks. I do not think that is even relevant to this discussion but since you are avoiding the real issue of the lies and deceit how about the graph someone posted that shows NPS funding increasing steadily over the past few years, not to mention that the Smokies received 80 million extra stimulus dollars with no mention of backcountry issues. That 80 million is 4 x their annual budget. How much of their annual budget goes to backcountry maintenance etc? Almost nothing. But backcountry users will pay and be the only ones to do so.
It's like arguing with the NPS. They avoid the real issues and throw out red herrings and go back to the old, boring and inaccurate 'Poor underfunded NPS diatribe." I am still waiting for someone here to read that FOIA and tell me what they think of page 5 and Ditmanson's authorization to collect a fee for a reservation system. I'm certain no one will tackle that watermelon because it is not defensible even by a NPS employee posting on company time or a retired one.
Jim - I thought we dispelled that myth earlier.
"Real" has lost any objective meaning in rhetoric. "I am a real blahblah" or "The real issue is XYZ" are pretty meaningless, when you realize and admit that if you ask 80 people what the 'real issue' is on anything you'll get 80 different answers.
In this discussion 'real' only means 'important to me'.
And to think I was under the impression this was about the backcountry fee in the Smokies. How embarrasing.
ec doesn't believe that, but the political push to increase the role of user fees vs. tax dollars as a funding source for the NPS was certainly well underway in the early 1980s when James Watt was Secretary of the Interior. Here are just three examples, excerpted from this 1983 history of the NPS fee program.
"With proper development, a User Fee Program can move the NPS in the direction of self-sufficiency and substantially, or entirely, free the Park System from the appropriation process." (Memorandum, Deputy Assistant Secretary William D. Bettenberg, to Secretary of the Interior James Watt, Dec. 17, 1981.)
Under even greater pressure to cut domestic spending, President Ronald Reagan's appointees saw park fees as a logical way of offsetting general revenue appropriations for this discretionary category of the Federal budget.
In a letter to Congressional leaders supporting "The Recreation Fees and Improvements Act of 1982," Secretaries Watt (Interior), Block (Agriculture) and March (Army) noted that "existing fee revenues covered only four percent of the cost of public recreation areas and facilities; they estimated an increase to ten percent under the proposed legislation."
I certainly recall similar sentiments from Congress over the years, but it's not worth the time to dig up more sources. If ec disagrees with my opinion, that's okay.
O boy is this one a heated debate.
I guess that's why we don't all drive the same color car or eat the same food.
I'll only say this when it's free we love it and when it's not,well we see the results.
Shoot it even cost money to die the last I heard.
SmokiesBackpacker , you keep referring to page 5 of the document set. Are you talking about this document set?
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3rQxlRiSX1Rczd4OV9maENTdG1DenM0ejhkR1hEQQ/edit?pli=1
If so, this is the section on page 5 that refers to GSMNP. Is this what you want people to comment on?
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GRSM is proposing to institute a new fee for backcountry camping and shelter reservation and use. The park currently does not charge for these reservations and is proposing to begin charging a fee to cover the service charges and related costs of putting these sites onto the NRRS. The final actual fee will be determined through the civic engagement process and is likely to align with the total fees charged to the NPS by the NRRS. Having these sites on the NRRS will improve customer service for the visitors wishing to reserve these sites as they will now have 24/7 access to reserve and/or change reservations rather than having to call the park during normal business hours. There will be no increase in overall annual revenue as the result of this proposed increase as this will simply be a new fee to cover the recreation.gov service fees.
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Jim, 1983 was 30 years ago, not "recent years". And as I recall, we went over this once before and saw in fact that funding had grown most ever year and fees had not become a significantly increasing share of the budget. Unfortunately, the NPS budget site doesn't appear to be working currently but I will keep monitoring it.
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Whether fees are taking an increasing share isn't "opinion". Either it has happened or it hasn't. If the numbers show they have, I will be happy to concede the point. My recollection is that we reviewed this issue once before and the numbers showed otherwise. But, it wouldn't be the first time my recollection was wrong if it proves otherwise.