HR 5204

agesilaus wrote:
"To amend the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act to improve
recreation opportunities and increase consistency and accountability in
the collection and expenditure of recreation fees collected on public
lands and forests, and for other purposes."
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Bill text

This bill if it gets passed and signed will affect anyone who uses Federal Lands: BLM, FS ect. I got an email saying that it was going to cause fees to be charged for camping in what the feds called distributed camping: also known as boondocking.

But a read thru didn't show that to me but it is written in lawyerese. It does seem to change Access passes so that any service connected veteran or current military person can get a free access passes.

It seems to restrict fees to areas which are improved with frequent service by park personnel. Otherwise I miss the boondocking impact since that occurs on non-improved land.

But maybe some of you can spot some objectionable items in the bill. I get the feeling this was inspired by the Obama park shutdown last year.

OK I just found this site which is rather alarmist:

Freecampsites

As I read it, every agency is involved and all sites are referenced

(f) Day Use Fee.--
``(1) Authorized sites for day use fees.--The Secretary may
charge a day use fee for Federal recreational lands and waters
under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management, the
Bureau of Reclamation, or the Forest Service at the following:
``(A) A National Conservation Area.
``(B) A National Volcanic Monument.
``(C) A destination visitor or interpretive center
that provides a broad range of interpretative services,
programs and media.
``(D) Sites of concentrated public use that are
managed primarily for outdoor recreation purposes where
there has been a substantial Federal investment in
facilities and services that are necessary to
accommodate heavy public use, public access to the site
is provided in such a manner that fees can be
effectively collected at one or more centralized
locations, the site has regularly serviced and well
maintained toilet facilities and contains at least four
of the following:
``(i) Designated developed parking.
``(ii) Trash collection.
``(iii) Permanent interpretative materials.
``(iv) Picnic tables.
``(v) Routine presence of agency personnel.
``(2) Single fee for multiple sites.--If there are two or
more sites of concentrated public use located within one-half
mile of each other, the Secretary may charge a single day use
fee for the sites and the area between the sites.
``(3)[COLOR=] Policy.--The Secretary shall determine, by agency, a
nationally consistent day use fee policy and rate structure