I'm not talking about a rodent, I'm talking about the Recreation Access Tax (RAT) that is what economists with a wicked sense of humor refer to as Free Market Environmentalism.
Many Kossacks have stated that they want to win in the west. Well RAT is a perfect issue number one. It began with a poor (double-tax) philosophy, expanded to a counter-productive policy, and in the dead of night was resurrected without debate.
George Ochenski lets us know the story behind RAT:
Like a diseased rodent in a shipping container, a very nasty little RAT--the acronym for the new Recreation Access Tax--was slipped into the federal Omnibus Spending Bill as a rider last weekend and the consequences are not pretty, especially for those of us living in the West.
As the Denver Post put it bluntly in a Sunday editorial: "Get ready to pay through the nose to use your national forests and other public lands. A last-minute plan to charge recreation fees on some federal lands for the next decade was tucked into the 3,000-page appropriations bill that passed Congress last Saturday. The proposal never received even one public hearing and was rammed into law by a congressman who has no public lands in his district. It was lawmaking at its worst."
The father of the RAT is Rep. Ralph Regula, a Republican from Ohio, who was more than happy to slap on a charge to use federal public lands, although he has no federal lands in his congressional district. Rep. Regula abused his position as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee to slap on the RAT rider, despite a clear record of overwhelming dissent from Western senators and congressmen.
Now some of you reading might be thinking: sure it is a double-tax, but if the money helps out the environment isn't it a good thing?
The initial Fee Demo Program was supposed to be just that--a temporary "demonstration" program to see how it worked in practice. But the problems began to arise almost immediately across the spectrum of national public lands. Contrary to its initial intent, a General Accounting Office study found the Fee Demo Program was costing appropriated money to pay formerly nonexistent expenses for enforcement, ticketing and prosecution of those who didn't pay.
So if this has been discredited, how did it end up in the omnibus bill?
To make a long story short, the RAT's father, Rep. Regula, saw the handwriting on the wall and realized Congress would never pass legislation to authorize general fees for using federal lands. Rumor has it that he cut a deal with Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), in which Stevens received pork-barrel funds for building a remote road in Alaska in return for allowing Regula to attach the Recreational Access Tax to the Omnibus Spending Bill in the conference committee without a hearing, debate or full vote on the issue.
Come on, is this really that bad?
When federal agencies abused their new fee authority, a strong anti-fee movement arose at the grassroots level as citizens throughout the nation suddenly found themselves faced with fees to even park on public lands. Then the federal agencies began to charge fines for those who refused to pay and the opposition went thermonuclear.
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To make matters worse, Regula's RAT rider also contains outrageous penalties of $5,000 and six months in jail, thus making criminals out of those who can not or do not pay the fees. As the Denver Post noted: "By comparison, damaging a fragile wetland with an all-terrain vehicle nets just a $75 fine."
OK, so it really is that bad. What does Mr. Ochenski think we should do?
The House of Representatives must vote on the Omnibus Bill before it can be sent to President Bush for his signature. That vote is scheduled to occur Monday, Dec. 6. All citizens who don't want to end up "paying through the nose" to access public lands they already own should let Congress and the White House know their feelings. For those seeking more information, a compendium of news articles on the RAT can be found at
www.wildwilderness.org/docs/feedemo.htm.
Recommend if you care about the West