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Lawsuit Against Backcountry User Fee At Great Smoky Mountains National Park Can Proceed

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By Kurt Repanshek - March 26th, 2014

A lawsuit challenging the backcountry user fee assessed at Great Smoky Mountains National Park can proceed, a federal judge has ruled.

Although Judge Joseph M. Hood rejected portions of the lawsuit brought by Southern Forest Watch, Inc., against the Interior Department and the National Park Service, he kept intact the group's challenge to the $4 per night per person fee for backcountry travelers in the national park.

The backcountry fee, with a $20 per person cap per trip, took effect in February 2013. It is intended by park officials to help streamline and improve the backcountry permitting process and heighten the presence of rangers in the backcountry.

In suing to overturn the fee, Southern Forest Watch contends not only that the fee isn't merited, but draws on both Park Service history and mandates to contend the agency is precluded from charging the $4 per person per night fee.

While Judge Hood dismissed the group's challenge of the online registration system the park put in effect, saying the plaintiffs had failed to show they were injured by the system, he ruled they could challenge the nightly fees. In doing so, he rejected the government's claim that the Park Service enjoyed sovereign immunity in creating and implementing the reservation system and fee structure.

"Plaintiffs may challenge the superintendent’s decision to implement the backpacker registration fee under the APA, and this Court will have jurisdiction," Judge Hood ruled.

No date for the challenge was immediately set.

Comments

Submitted by ecbuck on March 26, 2014 - 3:13pm.

insist on Tea Party taxation, what will happen to the things and services

If by "Tea Party taxation" you mean a cut in the tax rates, what will happen is an economic bounty just as happened after Kennedy, Reagan and Bush cut taxes rates.


Submitted by Rick B. on March 26, 2014 - 3:33pm.

That economic bounty from Bush's tax cuts was only a bounty for the wealthy to whom he is beholding.

Lee's point was simple. It is nuts to expect to both say "cut the taxes that fund the government" and "but of course I want what I want from that government".

I hate paying taxes. I hate even more not having parks or having uneducated kids or having unfunded road repair crews or fire departments. I grumble about the taxes but pay them. And I tend to vote for education bond issues or parks funding programs or such.

Please feel free to take your tea party stuff and give it the additional dietary fiber that it so badly needs.


Submitted by SmokiesBackpacker on March 26, 2014 - 3:53pm.

The public comments opposing the backcountry fee in the Smokies were 18-1 AGAINST it. And that fact is well documented in this magazine. So your assertion that folks are in favor of it is just like the NPS justifications used to push it by Dale Ditmanson. Lies. And this fee is characterized by lies, like Tom mentioned, at every turn. I am thrilled that this lawsuit will expose the NPS culture of deceit. I'm most excited about seeing the ways in which they used concessionaires to promote false information about the backcountry. These concessionaires had a vested interest in doing so in the form of renewed concession contracts. It is about to get real interesting around here and I'll bet some moustaches are seriously twitching up in DC because they never expected this to see the light of day.


Submitted by KBenzar on March 26, 2014 - 5:25pm.

Luckily the national forests don't charge yet so there is a place folks can still go and experience the freedom of the woods and not have to pay others to enjoy it but I expect that will someday change as well.

HikerBA I don't know where you live, but it must be in La La Land. Since 1996 the National Forests have been charging fees just to go for a walk in the woods in hundreds of places. Just google Adventure Pass, Northwest Forest Pass, Red Rock Pass, White Mountains Parking Pass, for a taste. And the BLM is charging a per-night, per-person (sometimes also per-night, per-dog) fee for permits to take a private, non-commercial hike or horseback ride in designated Wilderness areas at Paria Canyon, Aravaipa Canyon, and Gunnison Gorge (at least) and is trying to get a Wilderness access fee imposed in the King Range Wilderness on the Lost Coast of California.

Congratulations to Southern Forest Watch, and good luck on your lawsuit!

www.WesternSlopeNoFee.org


Submitted by ecbuck on March 26, 2014 - 5:40pm.

That economic bounty from Bush's tax cuts was only a bounty for the wealthy to whom he is beholding.

Wrong. Tax receipts went up 50% in the years immediately following the Bush tax rate cuts giving room for substantial increases in expenditures. Libs just can't get the concept that lower tax rates stimulate business activity, raise tax collections and make funding of things like the parks more possible.


Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on March 26, 2014 - 5:59pm.

EC, you're going to have to cite your claim. Here's how the Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution casts the impact of the Bush cuts:

The Bush tax cuts contributed, along with underlying economic conditions, to a historic decline in federal tax revenue. In 2000 total federal tax revenue was as high in proportion to the U.S. economy as it had ever been. By 2004 federal tax revenue in proportion to the economy had fallen to its lowest level in almost fifty years.

In recent decades the federal tax take has generally fluctuated between 17 and 19 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). By 2000, however, total federal tax receipts had reached 20.9 percent of GDP, their highest level since 1970 and matched only in 1944, when the federal government collected 20.9 percent of GDP in taxes at the height of fighting World War II. By 2004, however, federal tax receipts had fallen to 16.3 percent of GDP, which is not only the lowest level since 1970, but the lowest since 1959.

Most of the decline in the ratio of federal tax revenue to GDP can be traced to the individual income tax. From 1970 to 2000 these taxes were typically in the range of 8 to 9 percent of GDP. In 2000 individual income taxes were 10.3 percent of GDP, their highest level ever. By 2004 individual income taxes had dropped to 7.0 percent of GDP, their lowest level since 1951. Total federal tax revenue declined by 4.6 percent of GDP from 2000 to 2004; of that total, 3.3 percentage points, or almost three-quarters, was due to the decline in individual income tax revenue.

Most of the remaining decline in the revenue-to-GDP ratio resulted from a drop in the share in total revenue coming from corporate income taxes, which fell by 0.5 percent of GDP from 2000 to 2004, and a drop in the share coming from the payroll taxes that finance Social Security and Medicare, which declined by 0.4 percent of GDP over that period.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/bush-tax-cuts/re...

And then there's this:

Economic Downturn and Legacy of Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Deficits 

Federal deficits and debt have been sharply higher under President Obama, but the evidence continues to show that the Great Recession, President Bush’s tax cuts, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain most of the deficits that have occurred on Obama’s watch — based on the latest Congressional Budget Office projections as well as legislation enacted since we last issued this analysis of what lies behind current deficits and debt.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3849

And this:

The legacy of the Bush tax cuts, in four charts

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/02/the-legacy-of...


Submitted by Rick B. on March 26, 2014 - 6:17pm.

Nice documentation, Kurt.

And ec old buddy, I'm comfortable enough with myself that somehow a person shilling for the dark side online telling me that they think I'm 'wrong' doesn't really rock my ego much. Especially in cases like this where there is no uncertainty at all about my opinion.


Submitted by ecbuck on March 26, 2014 - 10:00pm.

EC, you're going to have to cite your claim.

Kurt (and Rick) you have to stop listening to the spin misters and go to the facts.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historicals

Click Table1. The White House statistics show that receipts in 2003, the year the primary portion of the tax cuts were enacted were $1,782 billion. By 2007, the number had increased to $2,567 billion, an increase of 44%. Rick, you are wrong. But keep drinking the Kool Aid


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