Local News Articles About the User Fee Demo Program

Owl's Head Summit Sign Lampoons Forest Fees - By Lorna Colquhoun [Manchester Union Leader, 12/27/ 99]

[Condensed] FRANCONIA [NH] - At the beginning of December, Dick and Sue Kenn of Lincoln had just one peak [4000' peak] to conquer and with a good map and a good day ahead of them, they set out on the 18-mile roundtrip to the summit of Owl's Head in the remote Pemigewasset Wilderness.

The hike is a rugged one and includes a steep climb over a long ago rock slide. As the couple, who met on Mount Lafayette in 1995 and married atop Mount Washington a year later, approached the wooded summit, they kept their eyes peeled for signs of a sign that they had reached the summit and completed their list.

The Owl's Head summit sign was there, securely bolted on to a tree, but so were a host of other presumably pirated U.S. Forest Service signs, including one about parking fees, a sore subject for many hikers. After a hard climb, this was not what they expected, although the couple had a good laugh reading the hand-lettered aluminum sign. "Someone went through a lot of effort to get it up there and bolted on the tree," Dick Kenn said.

The aluminum sign measures about 3 feet by 2 feet and offers a tongue-in-cheek menu of fees for everything from views of wildlife to sex on the trailside. The Kenns surmise that whoever made up the sign and hiked it in is someone, or likely, more than one person, who doesn't agree with the forest service's parking fee, and some of the agency's other policies.

The sign reads, "You are in a regulated U.S. fee area - Zone 1." Among the fees suggested include: * General day hiking - $15. * Overnight camping - $50. * Views: Clear days, $3; hazy days, $2; rainy days; $1. - Lunching at peak: $4. - trailside nookie: $3. There is also a fee schedule for viewing wildlife, anywhere from $2 for general wildlife; $4 for bear, moose, deer, to a whopping $8 for eagles and hawks.

LINCOLN - A dozen people gathered along the Kancamagus Highway on Saturday, raising signs and waving to motorists, to protest the user fees that exact the cost of a parking permit from anyone spending time on the hiking trails, river banks and mountain peaks of White Mountain National Forest. All national forest land has been brought under the controversial recreation fee system that began in the summer of 1997 as a demonstration. The fee demo will conclude on Sept. 30, 2001.

"This is a shift in the paradigm away from the public being the owners of the public land," said John Joline, co-founder of New England Public Forest Advocates and an organizer of the protest. "We feel that the fee has a demoralizing and coercive nature."

The roadside protest against the fees was complemented by a table of literature at the Wilderness Trail parking lot that criticized the program. Joline answered questions and handed out signs reading, "Stop the Fees," "We are not customers," "Kill the Fee Demo" and "Forest Rangers Yes, Parking Police No." "Their strategy is to shift public perception away from the traditional view of the simple enjoyment of nature as being our birthright toward its being a provided 'recreation experience' which we must purchase," reads one pamphlet.

Congress instituted the fee system in 1996 in the face of land management agency budget cuts and usage increases for national forest land. When the trial period ends next year, the fee demo could be dropped, extended or enacted as a permanent source of revenue for the forest service.

Tom Moore, program manager for the recreation fee program, has a feeling that the fees will remain. "That is the path they are going down and they are modifying it to become a permanent feature," said Moore. "But you never know."

Animosity towards the system has been fierce in the national forests of Idaho, home of the Sawtooth Mountains. "In northern Idaho they have had such strong resistance that they have been forced to weigh whether the social cost is worth the financial revenue," said Moore. "There has been difficulty in enforcing the fee system." On the subject of enforcement Moore posed the question, "Do we want to be forceful or do we want to design a program where people willingly participate? We can either have a very user-friendly approach or a heavy handed approach. We are looking for that middle ground." (THE CONWAY DAILY SUN, June 13, 2000)

Parking Fee Protests Continue

They stood qietly at the entrance to Lincoln Woods yesterday, holding signs in protest of the parking fee required of visitors to the White Mountain National Forest., waving in response to the occasional driver who honked his horn on the way by...

This is the third summer the USFS's recreation fee has been in effect in the forest and for as long as it has been, there have been those who disagree with it. It ... has not been without controversy.

"I am tired of the government taking land and claiming for their own instead of the land belonging to the people, " said Wayne Klinger of Benton. "We have taxes to pay for it -- they shouldn't be double-charging us for it."He was one of a dozen or so people who stood at the entrance to Lincoln Woods on the Kancamagus Highway to hold signs in protest of the forest fee. "We don't need paved parking lots," said Sharon Harkay of Thetford, VT. "I just want my natural surroundings." John Babiarz of Grafton, a libertarian candidate for governor, said ..."Parking fees are for the city, not the country."

Added Wilfred Bishop of Lincoln, "Enough is enough. We're losing enough rights without losing the right to walk in the woods."

"We're not adversarial,"[Tom] Moore [Forest Service spokesperson] said. "We have some points in common. We both want what's best and appropriate (for the national forest). ... [The program] is constantly being evaluated." (NEW HAMSHIRE SUNDAY NEWS, June 13, 2000)

Loophole Helps Those Who Do Not Pay

In March, 19 people were set to be prosecuted in US District Court in Concord for failing to pay the mandatory parking fee in the White Mountain National Forest.

All the cases were, at the behest of the US attorney's office, dismissed. The office will not say why it dropped the cases.

However, such spates of dismissals are not entirely unusual. Because of a loophole in the law that allows for fees to be charged for using the forest, case after case of recreation fee violations is being thrown out of court in Concord.

...It has become common knowledge that not showing up in court translates to not having to pay your parking fine. In all, more than 30 cases have been dismissed since January.

''I have been dismissing these left and right when [defendants] don't show up,'' Magistrate Judge James Muirhead said at a January hearing. At the very next hearing date for the fee violators, March 20, Muirhead dismissed every single case before him.

Forest Service officials say they are meeting with the magistrate to determine ''what does it take to meet his interpretation of the law,'' said George Pozzuto, of the Androscoggin Ranger District, who oversees the fee pilot program.

''We are expecting to go out and still enforce the thing this summer,'' said Pozzuto. ''How we go about that needs to adapt from what we've learned, but I'm not sure what way it's going to go.''

The loophole is this: The law that mandates the recreation fee does not require people to display proof of payment in their car window.

''The difficulty here is this,'' Muirhead said in January. ''There is nothing in that regulation that requires anybody to post anything on their automobile. And if the Forest Service wants to prove that somebody hasn't paid the fee, they're going to have to prove that there was no'' payment made. If they can't do that, he said, they can't prove their case.

The issue is being played out in other parts of the country as well, where federal prosecutors have balked at prosecuting fee violators.

The US attorney for Idaho, Betty Richardson, told the Idaho Mountain Express in January:

''As it's set up now, the program relies on the federal criminal justice system to enforce what are essentially parking tickets. In most instances, that's an unwise use of taxpayer money, which is badly needed to fight more serious problems, like fraud, drug smuggling and violent crime.''

- BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE, NH WEEKLY; By Lois R. Shea, Globe Staff, 4/30/2000

Survey Finds Forest Fees Discourage Some Users

It's basic economics: Charge money - or raise existing fees - for using public lands, and some poor people become less likely to use them.

A new study has found just that, and it may add fuel to the controversy over the pilot Recreation Fee Demonstration Program in the White Mountain National Forest.

In recent years, the study found, low-income people in New Hampshire and Vermont have begun to shy away from using land owned by all American taxpayers because the price is becoming too steep.

The study will be published this fall in the Journal of Leisure Research. It asked the question: ''Do user fees exclude low- income people from resource-based recreation?''

And it concluded that, in some cases, they do.

''User fees, although widely accepted, significantly discriminate against low-income people,'' the study concluded.

''So basically, the concern is that some people are beginning to get priced out of the national forest,'' Stevens said.

Anti-fee activists are quick to point to the study to buttress their arguments. John Joline of New England Public Forest Advocates, which opposes user fees in the national forest, said the study shows that ''low-income people are being prohibited [actual quote was "prevented" or "inhibited"] from freely walking on their public lands. That is outrageous.''

''Right from the get-go, low-income families were a concern of ours,'' said George Pozzuto of the Androscoggin Ranger District, who oversees the pilot program in New Hampshire.

He said that was one reason the Forest Service instituted a volunteer program - whereby people can earn an annual pass by doing volunteer work in the forest. [WEBMASTER'S NOTE: WHAT THE FS SPOKESPERSON REFERS TO IS A PLAN WHEREBY PEOPLE CAN WORK FOR A PASS AT A RATE ON ONE DOLLAR AN HOUR: 20 HOURS OF LABOR FOR A $20 PASS. WE DOUBT THAT LOW-INCOME PEOPLE ARE FLOCKING TO THE FS TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS SUPPOSED COMPASSIONATE GENEROSITY. THIS IS A SLAP IN THE FACE OF LOW-INCOME CITIZENS.]

''I would suppose that there are some people that are being priced out, who feel they are,'' Pozzuto said.

The authors of the study, Thomas More of the Forest Service Northeast Research Station in Burlington, Vt., and Stevens, wrote that ''user fees, although widely accepted, significantly discriminate against low-income people.''

''The Forest Service really was not anxious for this study to be talked about,'' Stevens said.

Earlier studies, Stevens said, have found growing public acceptance* of user fees.[* see below] But, he said, those studies have queried people who are actually using the lands and paying the fees.

The recent study states: ''Suppose, for example, that you owned a movie theater that charged $35 per ticket. A survey of the few people who came might well reveal that they were satisfied and supported the fee. What you would miss would be the opinions of those who never showed up because of the fee.''

... Stevens hopes that the federal lawmakers will take this new study into account when making their final decision on continuing the fee program.

''Before Congress makes a final decision about whether these fees are going to be permanent or not, I think more thought ought to be given to the potential problems they may impose on low- income people,'' Stevens said.

''One almost gets the impression that Congress has decided that this fee structure will be permanent without having given full consideration to all the relevant issues.''

And, the study says: ''If low-income people are, in fact, excluded from public parks and recreation areas, then serious policy questions are raised about the very purpose of public recreation.''

''Fees,'' the report states, ''... are a major step in the gentrification of recreation resources.''

- BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE (NH WEEKLY) By Lois R. Shea, Globe Staff, 4/30/ 2000

*[WEBMASTER'S NOTE: The More/Stevens study found that many people (paradoxically including low-income people, who are impacted so negatively by fees) generally accept the idea of user fees for many things. But the study's authors concluded that this was largely due to the "dominant line of political discourse over the last decade or two" (people constantly hearing, "cut spending, reduce taxes"), and that we may very well begin to see a major change in this attitude coming soon, especially as the income gap continues to widen.]

LAWMAKERS SAY FOREST FEES SHOULD BE VOLUNTARY

State Rep. Gene Chandler says officials for the White Mountain National Forest need to explore making their controversial forest user fees voluntary

The U.S. Forest Service implemented the fees as a demonstration in 1997 after declining budgets cut services and employees. Immediately, the plan offended residents of communities containing forest land.

Chandler acknowledged that money for the forest is tight, but said there are better ways to raise funds.

Three years ago, at the request of the Forest Service, Chandler led a committee that looked into user fees. The group suggested using a fee system that was not mandatory.

''Our position was that we could net, or the forest service could net, as much maybe even more but certainly almost as much money on a net basis with a strictly voluntary system,'' he said.

The Forest Service in New Hampshire liked the idea, but [WMNF Supervisor] Hepp said it was rejected by officials in Washington. ''The determination that was made was that the law didn't allow for the types of proposals we were making, that there wasn't provisions under the law for us to have a voluntary program,'' she said.

While it is true the law that established the demonstration program was designed to collect mandatory fees, officials in Washington said there are ways New Hampshire could get around that. James Furnish, deputy chief of the National Forest System, said White Mountain officials could drop out of the fee demonstration program and set up their own voluntary system.

''They would have to look at the bottom line as to how much money they think they could generate with donations,'' he said. ''But they're not prohibited by anybody from doing that.''

Walter Graff, deputy director of the Appalachian Mountain Club, thinks that is a good idea. He believes many people would be happy to pay a voluntary fee if they knew the money was going directly to the forest.

-by Associated Press (in BOSTON GLOBE) 4/28/00

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GROUP: FOREST FEES POOR SUBSTITUTE FOR FUNDING.

LAWMAKERS URGE CONGRESS TO RESTORE BUDGET

Renewing their attack on user fees in the White Mountain National Forest, critics yesterday said the program is alienating hikers, fisherman and wildlife lovers and turning forest rangers into parking ticket writers.

Backed by a dozen state lawmakers, a national user fee opponent charged that the program is a poor substitute after Congressional budget cuts that slashed U.S. Forest Service recreation programs and staff over the last five years.

"It's turning people from being the owners of public land to customers on public lands," said Scott Silver, of the Oregon-based Wild Wilderness. He contends the fees result from a recreation industry effort to create profit- making opportunities on national forests.

State lawmakers introduced a joint resolution urging Congress to restore the Forest Service budget and scrap the user fee program altogether.

"We're on a slippery slope," said Sen. Fred King, a Colebrook Republican and sponsor of the resolution. "We can thank the federal government for their inability to fund the Forest Service."

House Majority Leader Gene Chandler is also a prime sponsor.

Critics agree the Forest Service needs more money, but not from recreational users who have enjoyed, and expected, free access to the public land for generations. They said Congress should boost the budget, which would allow Forest Service employees to spend more time building trails, fighting fires and helping lost or injured hikers.

"We've turned our once- proud forest rangers into glorified parking meter maids," said Doug Teschner, a Pike resident and former state representative who is organizing statewide fee opposition.

The state's four-member Congressional delegation supports an end to the fee program, due to expire in 2001. It says the program is particularly offensive to North Country residents because the Forest Service does not fully pay towns for the local fire, police and rescue services it uses.

King said North Country residents are also irked that it's becoming more difficult to recreate in the outdoors without paying some sort of fee. Champion International, a pulp and paper company and the state's largest landowner, recently announced plans to start charging people to use its vast, forested holdings around Colebrook and Pittsburg.

"They're private, for- profit corporations, and they have stockholders that they have to satisfy," King said of his region's timber companies. "And if they see money being charged to use public lands, it's hard for them to justify to their stockholders and directors why they shouldn't charge to use private land. So what we're seeing is a major shift in recreational availability of these huge land masses in the northern part of the state." ...Silver said a driving force behind the fees is the recreation industry, which hopes to profit by providing services and developing visitor amenities on the national forests. One of the user fee's largest supporters is the American Recreation Coalition, a group of recreation- based companies.

"It creates the ability to turn our public land into recreational revenue generators," Silver said. [CONCORD MONITOR, Thursday, April 13, 2000. By Jim Graham.]

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BATTLE OVER FOREST FEES CONTINUES TO RAGE

A national critic of White Mountain National Forest user fees says the fees are changing the face of public lands. "Don't be surprised if a trip to a national forest soon reminds you of spending a day at Disney or KOA," said Scott Silver, of the Oregon-based environmental group Wild Wilderness.

Those who can afford to play will pay, said Silver, who spoke at Plymouth State College on Wednesday. Those who are driving the private-public relationship, that started 20 years ago with the American Recreation (Council), are attempting to offer more and more services in the nation's forests... Silver addressed many of the same issues at a news conference earlier in the day.

Rep. Gene Chandler, R- Bartlett, an early opponent, said forest neighbors feel set upon because while the government now charges them to use the forest, it continues using town services, such as police, fire, and rescue, without paying communities the full amount promised years ago to make up for property taxes they otherwise could collect on the forest land.

Sen. Fred King, R- Colebrook, who heads a special legislative committee on forest issues, worries other large landowners might begin charging to use their property, too.

"We're on a slippery slope," King said. 'We can thank the federal government for their inability to fund the Forest Service."

-LACONIA EVENING CITIZEN, April (prob. 13 or 14), 2000

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Forest Fees Targeted / Chandler: Protest Forest User Fees

A leading state lawmaker says an experiment to help the U.S. Forest Service raise money by charging visitors to national forests has failed and should be ended. House Majority Leader Gene Chandler, a Bartlett Republican, is urging New Hampshire residents to write letters protesting the fee to a key congressional committee.

"The Forest Service officials in Washington and Congress need to understand that the fee system is straining the fabric of good relationships between citizens, communities and the White Mountain National Forest," Chandler said.

For four years, outdoor enthusiasts have been required to pay parking fees on the federally owned forest. Although it has raised money to cover congressional budget cuts to the forest, the program also prompted protests across the country.

Letters to the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee will be accepted until April 6, and can be mailed to Chairman Ralph Regula, B308 Rayburn Building, Washington, D.C. 20515.

In New Hampshire, a group formed last fall to fight the recreation user fees. The New England Public Forest Advocates' Web address is: http:// sites.netscape.net/nepfa/ homepage.

- [Concord Monitor (and 2nd headline from Manchester Union-Leader), Friday, March 17, 2000.]

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Fee Scoflaws Walk Away Without Fines

Because of continuing federal snafus, tickets for failing to display a "recreation fee" parking pass are often dismissed in federal courts here and across the country. "I have been dismissing these left and right when (defendants) don't show up," Magistrate Judge James Muirhead said during one ticket hearing at U.S. District Court in Concord in January. In Idaho, U.S. District Attorney Betty Richardson recently refused to prosecute people who don't pay, saying the law is too cumbersome and costly for her office to enforce. Nationwide, anti-fee groups are organizing protests...

Many outdoor enthusiasts, including those who pay the fee, remain uneasy with the idea of forcing the public to pay to venture onto public lands. Some prosecutors, federal judges and members of Congress are also having second thoughts.

Going after fee violators is also proving to be a bureaucratic nightmare - producing cases that are a headache to administrate, costly to prosecute and often difficult to prove. While most people caught without a pass simply write a check and mail in their fine, those who don't pay stand a good chance of seeing the charge dropped - even if they don't show up in court.

The most common reason is a simple flaw in the law. The statute requiring people to pay the recreation fee does not actually state that they must display proof in their car window. "The difficulty here is this: There is nothing in that regulation that requires anybody to post anything on their automobile," [Magistrate Judge] Muirhead said at the January hearing. "And if the Forest Service wants to prove that somebody hasn't paid the fee, they're going to have to prove that there was no (payment) made. . . . And if they fail to do that, they have not proved their case." In January, a case in Maine was dismissed for a different reason: The Forest Service could not prove that the man whose car was ticketed was actually hiking. Although the man admitted his car was parked at a trailhead on the federally owned forest that day, he suggested that his friends might have driven the car that day. The ticket for failing to pay is supposed to go to the person using the land, not the owner of the vehicle.

"Had you chosen not to testify," Muirhead told [another defendant], "I would have dismissed [your case]." The U.S. Attorney's office in Concord declined to comment for this story; members of the New England Public Forest Advocates predicted cases will continue to be dismissed until the Forest Service and prosecutors can work out problems with enforcing the law.

Nineteen states have groups fighting the parking fee... Critics say the test has failed, for legal and other reasons, and now a growing number of outdoor enthusiasts and politicians agree. The most active opposition groups are out West. Last fall, however, a handful of fee-violators [webmaster's note: not all were alleged violators] started meeting in New Hampshire to air their gripes. Now, New England Public Forest Advocates has its own Web site and is beginning to organize the first public protests in New England against the fee.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass and Senator Judd Gregg are behind new efforts that would end the recreation fees altogether. "I understand that the purpose of the parking fee is to raise revenue to maintain the forest," Bass said last April, when he co-sponsored the bill to end the fees. "But this is public land for the entire nation and therefore should be supported through the traditional funding process." "I believe that the user fees are effectively a double tax," Gregg wrote, noting he is following House legislation to eliminate the fees.

The local Forest Advocates group actually sympathizes with the Forest Service. "The Forest Service people and federal prosecutors who have to deal with this have been incredibly helpful and professional in dealing with us," Joline said. "But the process Congress has come up with puts them between a rock and a hard place, and it's burdened them with a wrongheaded, onerous policy that's offending a lot of people."

[CONCORD MONITOR, Sunday, March 12, 2000]

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National Forest Parking Fee Extension Upsets North Country

LACONIA - Though the [national fee-demo program] was set to end in 1999, Congress voted last week to extend it to Sept. 30, 2001, claiming that most of the public supports the effort as a way to pay for park services and upkeep. "The people in my district could not disagree more. They feel this fee thing is terribly unfair," said state Rep. Gene Chandler, R- Bartlett.

Residents of Carroll, Coos, and Grafton counties responded to a non- binding referendum at town ballots in March and overwhelmingly voiced opposition to the fee. In towns where they were polled, 1.531 residents supported the user/parking fee while 4,231 voted in opposition. In addition, residents in Tuftonboro, Lancaster, Whitefield, Bethlehem, Campton, Lisbon, Sugar Hill, and Dalton voted during their annual town meetings against the user/parking fee. Selectmen in Sandwich, Colebrook, and Stewardstown have also reported to the federal government that they also oppose the fee program.

Reps. John E. Sununu and Charles Bass, both R- NH, opposed the extension of the program... [Manchester Union Leader, 8/11/98]

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White Mountain Car Fees Leaving a Trail of Anger

Starting this year on May 23 [forest fees] will become manadatory. People who park in foresat lots without a permit could get a $50 fine...

This has upset hikers who love to traipse through the woods or climb to the summit[s]... "What are they gonna do next? Charge the animals for using the woods?" aksed an angry Emerson "Buck" Cogswell of Fitchburg. "I've been hiking and climbing the White Mountains nearly 40 years and now they want to charge me for it," Cogswell said. Last year, when it was voluntary, i cooughed up $5 five or six times. But now they've made it like Massachussetts."

His pal, Robert Delvecchio, 58, of Gardner, said, "... What are they going to tax next, the air we breathe?"

"I don't care if it's the federal or the state government that's charging us to use nature," Cogswell said. "We'll have to learn new trails trails but from now on, we're going to southern Vermont." [Boston Herald, 4/27/ 98]

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Forest Service Rejects Local Exemption for Parking Fee. - Rep. Chandler Disgusted with Forest Service Pencil Pushers

CONCORD - The U.S Forest Service has rejected the local examption from parking fees proposed by Rep. Gene Chandler's ad-hoc committee studying the issue. After a month of negotiating the language of a waiver, White Montain National Forest Supervisor Donna Hepp told Chandler on Monday that Forest Service officials in Washington nixed the plan.

"We have been working with the White Mountain National Forest Staff for months on this and it appears that we have wasted out time," Chandler said. "We are told one thing by the supervisor here in New Hampshire only to find out that the higher ups in the Forest Service in Muilwaukee or Washington overrule the forest staff in Laconia. We were asked to provide recommendations on how to improve on the pilot fee program begun in 1997 and none of our recommendations will be carried out. It's pretty discouraging." Chandler's committee was formed at the request of Hepp to recommend improvements in the user fee system. ...

We thought we were all set," Chandler said. "The problem was they turned down [a proposal for an exeption from fees for all local residents]. For whatever reason, they rejected it. It seemed like ... they just didn't want to do the local exemption so they didn't." In a press release issued yesterday morning by Chandler's group, Levesque stated that after the [local] exemption was derailed, "Hepp then offerred an alternative to the local exemption - a waiver that had been instituted on a national forest in Idaho in 1997. Under this provision, any citizen would be given a free pass if they were willing to sign a waiver form requesting the pass."

"It would be an understatement to say I'm disappointed," Chandler said. "The waiver was their idea. We got all set on this and then the Forest Service in Washington rules against its own forest service in theWhite Mountains. It's ludicroous; it's very frustrating. I feel sorry for the local forest service people who deal with people here every day. This decision was made by people in Washington who sit behind a desk pushing a pencil. They've never been up here and probably never will... Unfortunately the people in Washington don't get it and we have to live with thir consequences." - CONWAY DAILY SUN 5/ 22/98

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Albany Couple Pushes For Forest Fees Boycott

An Albany couple is spearheading what could become a 37-town effort to boycott user fees in the White Mountain National Forest.

Frank and Ann Wolfe presented Bartlett Selectmen with a proposal to organize a summit of all communities connected to the forest in an effort to fight the $20 user fee. ...

Selectman Gene Chandler said the Bartlett selectmen met Friday and agreed to tro to organize the summit.

"I didn't get too excited by this user fee thing when it first came out, but after I heard more and more about it, this is just wrong." .... [Valley News, 6/22/97]

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U.S Forest Fees Anger 2 Lawmakers

State Rep. Douglass Teschner got an unpleasant surprise last week when he pulled off the road on his way home from Concord for a short evening hike on Rattlesnake Mountain in Rumney. When Teschner returned to his car he found what amounted to a parking ticket under his windshield wiper -- an "invitation" from the U.S. Forest Service to pay fees the federal agency now requires from anyone who parks on land belonging to the White Mountain national Forest. ...

Teschner, an avid hiker and Appalachian mountain Club member, says he supports user fees for improved facilities like parks and campgrounds, but thinks charging people parking fees to pull off the road and take a walk in the woods is going too far. On friday he announced he would not pay the fees.

"I can certainly afford to pay, and at first was grudgingly going to send in the money, but at the last minute, I decided somebody needed to take a stand." he said in a news release sent out on House stationary. "I'm doing this for the little guy who wants to fish or hike and for whom $20 is a lot of money. I also protesting due to tradition: that's public land, mine and yours, and we should have the right to use it."

U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass, R-NH, lodged his own protest soon after the fees went into effect. ... [Valley News, 6/16/97]

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Forest Fee Assailed - Lack of Funding of National Forest Cited by Speakers

Few people spoke out in favor of the White Mountain National Forest's controversial parking permits program at two forums held this past week in Mt Washington Valley. But most agree that Congress needs to do more to fund the recreational needs of the WMNF.

Many of the speakers said the fee ... represents double or triple taxation for local residents ... and criticized the inequities in the enforcement of the passport program. ... Many speakers questioned the wisdom of devoting limited Forest Service budgetary resources to enforcing a program that anticipated to raise only $300,000 to $500,000 per year.

"As it stands now, you can't see the forest for the fees," said [state Rep. Doug] Teschner... [THE MOUNTAIN EAR, 10/23/ 97]

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Lawmakers, Others Continue to Fight National Forest Fees

CONCORD - Rep. Doug Chandler was among a handful of state lawmakers who announced at a sparsely attended news conference last spring that they would not pay fees to use the White Mountain National Forest. ...

Now Pike Republican Doug Teschner and other opponents are crusaders, leading growing opposition from small North Country towns such as Pike to Congressional hearings in Washington.

"I'm still getting calls from all over the state. people are really steamed about it," Teschner said. [Concord Monitor, 7/ 27/97]

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Forest Fee leads to Chant: 'Take a Hike' - Critics Pine for Alternative to Recreation Charge

Alexis Jackson, a Forest Service spokeswoman in Laconia... fields several calls a day from irate forest users angered by the fee...

Exempting residents of Coos, Carroll, and Grafton counties will be but a first step, [State Rep. Gene] Chandler said, to eliminating the user fee system atogether. He'd rather see the Forest Service's management, operations and budget reviewed, and provided enough money so user fees aren't necessary...

"The way this has been implemented, it's almost a recipe for disaster," Chandler said. State Rep. Douglas Teschner called [fee- demo], "an insidious form of double-taxation."

"It's simply unacceptable -- philosophically and fiscally -- to ask citizens to pay user fees on land they already subsidize," said Grafton County Commissioner Steve Panagoulis. [Concord Monitor, 7/ 27/97]