FEDERAL JUDGE ALLOWS PRIVATIZATION OF ALL RECREATION ON ALL NATIONAL FORESTS

ouch, not liking this

FEDERAL JUDGE ALLOWS PRIVATIZATION OF ALL RECREATION ON ALL NATIONAL FORESTS

Ruling says concessionaires are exempt from the requirements and restrictions in federal recreation fee law.

In a ruling handed down March 28, 2014, Judge Rudolph Contreras of the DC District Court wrote that Forest Service concessionaires are not subject to the restrictions on recreation fees that apply at agency-managed recreation sites.

The ruling essentially means that private companies operating under permit on National Forest land can require everyone to pay a fee for doing anything, anywhere within their permit area.

The ruling concludes a lawsuit filed by several individuals and a watchdog organization, challenging the Forest Service policy of allowing concessionaires to charge fees that the agency is not allowed to charge under the limitations in the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act.

source of this post is http://forestpolicypub.com/2014/03/30/federal-judge-allows-privatization-of-all-recreation-on-all-national-forests/

Fees for using Public lands Managed by USFS and BLM

Andy Stahl posts on the blog The New Century in Forest Planning ( http://ncfp.wordpress.com/ ).  His latest entry is about congressional review of the fees being charged.  He writes:

"This week a House natural resources subcommittee heard testimony regarding the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA). FLREA, which became law in 2004, will expire in 2014 unless reauthorized, leaving federal land management agencies without legal authority to charge recreation fees.

My crystal ball predicts that Congress will reauthorize FLREA before it expires, but limit fee authority to highly developed sites only (e.g., campgrounds, RV hook-ups) and national parks entry.  I don’t expect the Forest Service’s and BLM’s existing “standard amenity fee” authority to survive congressional scrutiny. The agencies’ experiment with dispersed recreation fees began in 1996 with “fee demo” and has proven controversial, especially with local, rural residents accustomed to casual recreation access to their federal land backyards.  In 2012, the Ninth Circuit court took the Forest Service to the woodshed for abusing FLREA’s dispersed recreation fee authorities."

We are interested in this issue because our locals have some issues with the parking situation at Wildwood run by BLM.  Perhaps, congress will modify how BLM treats our "casual recreation access".

If really interested in this, you might enjoy reading the court decision linked in the blog entry.

Florida land-use case at Supreme Court may have national impact

An interesting Supreme Court case is pending arguments soon.  Below is an excerpt from an article:

"The National Association of Home Builders and conservative allies have lined up with the Koontz family. They want the court to rule that a government agency that refuses a land-use permit because the property owner declines to pay certain fees has essentially taken the property. This would compel agencies to more strictly justify their permit requirements.

From the opposite side, California and 18 other states are urging the court not to impede the widespread use of fees by characterizing them as a taking.

“Impact fees on developments are used by a large percentage of localities across the nation,” notes the states’ legal brief, chiefly authored by California Supervising Deputy Attorney General Daniel L. Siegel, adding that “to offset harm caused by proposed projects, state and local governments widely condition approvals on mitigation, often in the form of mitigation fees.”"

source:  http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/01/11/2599837/florida-land-use-case-at-supreme.html

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/01/11/2599837/florida-land-use-case-at-supreme.html#storylink=cpy