[Nmcaver] nmcaver Digest, Vol 21, Issue 9

[Stephen Fleming]

Mike, I have to agree with Bill. He is not wrong. These are fees to use 
lands we have already paid for and if you want to play on the NPS 
segment you will pay ever-increasing costs. When you read the NPS press 
releases, they don't even pretend they have involved the public in their 
fee decisions. There is no mention of public comments or hearings. No 
mention that not everyone agrees with their processes. All you see is 
that they've done an internal study to ensure the fees are consistent 
with other parks. Well, I am so impressed they are so concerned with 
consistency among parks. Doesn't make any of it right. Where is the data 
to show any of their fees are necessary? By that I mean some verifiable 
process that is not based on them just saying they need it. You ever 
seen that kind of data? I haven't.

There is no oversight, only their own determination that a fee is a) 
necessary and b) not yet high enough to satisfy them. More importantly 
and distressingly, they are now levying a 'scenery tax'. The only 
service they are providing for this is to be there to collect a fee for 
your simple presence on the land. Outrageous, and that includes the 
current POS $3 fee they imposed to little fanfare a few years ago. They 
pulled that one off, so now it's time to get serious about making money. 
Note that there are no facilities provided, no capital improvements 
being used. Except for the NPS 'need' to be there to 'service' your 
wallet, even the employee serves no purpose in your use of the land 
while hiking. What's next, stopping traffic on the highway to extract a 
fee because you are looking at 'their' mountain as you drive to El Paso?

Read Lujan's letter again, he says he wants comments but he doesn't care 
whether anyone does or not; it is VERY clear the fee increase is a done 
deal as far as he is concerned, regardless of what the public thinks. 
Pretty cavalier attitude with our public lands. Everyone who acquiesces 
to this sort of robbery because 'oh, they need it because they say they 
do' or 'oh, I don't mind paying to use what I already own' or 'it's for 
a good purpose and is only a few dollars', etc. certainly doesn't 
understand where this is all headed. They merely are priming you to 
eventually pay them something every time you turn around in a park. 
There's already (progressively higher) entry fees, camping fees, and now 
hiking/look-at-the-view fees. They haven't begun to exhaust the 
potential here, but they are already starting to exhaust their 
clientele; something they must not be able to understand they cannot 
afford to do if they plan on surviving as an organization. The higher 
the fees go, the less people will visit and the higher the fees will 
have to be to offset the loss. It is a downward spiral. When will their 
fees be too much? They already are for a lot of us (as always: it's not 
because I can't pay them, it is because the fees are WRONG). The NPS is 
serving itself, not the public. They don't see it that way. They never 
have. They never will. We have a good track record of quashing other 
ill-advised proposals affecting the Guadalupe Mountains over the last 10 
or so years. Sadly, they never learn and now we have to do it again. 
There's apparently no institutional memory for these things and you have 
to constantly educate these over-achieving managers one at a time that 
the public lands are placed in their trust for management, not their 
ownership or proprietary dalliance.

nmcaver-request at caver.net wrote:
> Subject:
> Re: [Nmcaver] nmcaver Digest, Vol 21, Issue 7
> From:
> Mike_Bilbo at nm.blm.gov
> Date:
> Mon, 26 Jun 2006 08:51:22 -0600
> To:
> <bbellis at cptnet.com>
>
> To:
> <bbellis at cptnet.com>
> CC:
> nmcaver at caver.net, nmcaver-bounces at caver.net
>
>
> http://www.nps.gov/fees_passes.htm
>
> No one is required to obtain these - they are offered for convenience.
>
> Mike Bilbo
>                                                                            
>                                                                            
> The National Parks Pass and the Golden Eagle are fancy names for another
> TAX TO USE OUR OWN PUBLIC LANDS.
>
> Bill Ellis
>   
> Subject:
> Re: [Nmcaver] nmcaver Digest, Vol 21, Issue 7
> From:
> Mike_Bilbo at nm.blm.gov
> Date:
> Mon, 26 Jun 2006 08:41:38 -0600
> To:
> <bbellis at cptnet.com>
>
> To:
> <bbellis at cptnet.com>
> CC:
> nmcaver at caver.net
>
>
> Bill, you are absolutely wrong on this.
>
> Mike Bilbo
>   
> Subject:
> Re: [Nmcaver] nmcaver Digest, Vol 21, Issue 7
> From:
> <bbellis at cptnet.com>
> Date:
> Mon, 26 Jun 2006 09:26:55 -0600
> To:
> <Mike_Bilbo at nm.blm.gov>
>
> To:
> <Mike_Bilbo at nm.blm.gov>
> CC:
> nmcaver at caver.net, nmcaver-bounces at caver.net
>
>
> Tax; A contribution for the support of a government required of 
> persons, groups or businesses within the domain of that government. 
> (The American Heritage Dictionary)
> I stand by my statement.
> The passes at the web site below cost $50.00. True, that you are not 
> required to buy one. But you will still be charged entrance fees at 
> the parks if you don't have one. By definition these are taxes.
>  
> So when a park Superintendent decides to raise entrance fees, how is 
> this not "taxation without representation". He is not elected. And it 
> seems to me that issues like this caused quite a reaction a few 
> hundred years ago.
>  
> Bill Ellis  

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