The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Opponents of Forest Service trail fees are citing a General Accounting Office (GAO) report that they say proves the agency is padding the numbers in an effort to make its fee program look like a success.

In a recently released joint statement, Oregon-based Wild Wilderness and the Colorado-based Western Slope No-fee Coalition reported: "The U.S. Forest Service has been secretly subsidizing the management of its Fee Demo program with (in 2001) $10 million of appropriated tax dollars."

According to Scott Silver, Bend resident and Executive Director of Wild Wilderness, the report "reveals a deep-seated culture of deception and a total lack of accountability within the Forest Service's Fee Demo program."

Rex Holloway, spokesman for the Deschutes-Ochoco National Forests, denied that any deception was involved but admitted, "That report did find that in some cases we were using appropriated dollars, but we were consistent with federal accounting procedures."

Holloway said the appropriated funds were channeled the way they were to permit the actual dollars from fee collections to go directly to physical improvements.

"I think we've been pretty up front with Congress about how much it costs to collect the fees," he said.

The problem, Silver says, is that the Forest Service showed the collected fees going to projects but failed to report appropriated expenditures as an offset to the funds collected.

"For example," he said, "we pay Rex Holloway in appropriated dollars, but the work he and others do to promote Fee Demo should rightfully be debited to Fee Demo. That's the kind of subsidy we're talking about."

The charges leveled by the fee opponents come at a time when Congress must decide whether to continue the controversial program.

Silver said that forest fee opposition groups are active in Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and elsewhere.

Oregon is among several states with legislatures that have gone on record as opposing the federal program.

"Across the nation," Silver said, "forest fees have outraged the American public, who are well aware that tax dollars have maintained our National Forests for over a century for all Americans to enjoy."

Page 30 of the 48-page GAO report specifically cites "inaccurate reporting" that leaves the Forest Service with "no assurance" that it complies with a ceiling of 15 percent on fee collection costs.

According to the figures in the fee opponents' joint news release, when appropriated fund expenditures are factored in, the real cost of fee collection is 50 percent of the amount collected.

Further, fee opponents suggest that the use of appropriated funds to offset costs is not only deception but a misuse of public funds.

Robert Funkhouser, President of the Western Slope No-fee Coalition is presently in Washington, D.C., lobbying against the forest fees. He said that people in places like Sisters have a lot at stake.

"There were some things we were talking about with members of Congress today," Funkhouser said in an exclusive interview with The Nugget, "and there's a lot of agreement in both parties that it (the Fee Demo program) unfairly targets rural Americans and particularly rural Westerners."

Funkhouser went on to say, "The forests belong to the American people, not the agencies. If the agencies aren't accountable, how can they ask the American public to throw in more money? It's like a black hole."

He expressed optimism and said that he sees a legislative consensus forming and hopes to see a bill put together to end the Fee Demo program this year.

"It is time for Congress to terminate this ill-conceived fee program. Americans have already paid taxes to maintain what is theirs," he said.

"The perverse incentive created by letting land management agencies appropriate their own funds, outside of congressional oversight, leads to the abuses we see in this report," Funkhouser said.

"This GAO report shows that the Forest Service misled Congress and the American people about the costs involved with forest fees."

Various news reports have indicated that Oregon Congressman Greg Walden, who represents Central Oregon, is opposed to the fee program.

However, it is unclear at this point what, if any, action he has taken on the issue. An inquiry to his office on the subject elicited a response related to the military appropriations budget.

While Walden and his congressional colleagues have not made the plan permanent, they have extended the fees multiple times.

The program is due to expire again on September 30, 2004.

Silver and his allies continue to vigorously oppose the plan and hope to see the program end then, if not before.

Silver feels that the movement is gaining momentum.

"This past weekend was a great one for us for editorials," he said.

"The Denver Post and the newspaper in Twin Falls, Idaho, ran editorials calling for an end to the Fee Demo program."

According to Silver, some people oppose the fee program because it has the potential to commercialize and privatize the use of the National Forests; some oppose it because it represents a form of double-taxation.

Either way, he says, "It's a bad plan."

Funkhouser agrees and emphasizes that Republicans and Democrats alike are opposing the program.

"It's not a partisan issue," he said. "The people who oppose this come from the widest possible political spectrum."