ENDING THE ADVENTURE PASS

                                                            JULY 22, 1998

Mr. Chairman, today I join with my colleagues, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) and the
gentleman from California (Mr. Herger) to offer a bipartisan, common sense amendment that will
put an end to an outrageous tax increase on American families.

Two years ago, the recreational fee demonstration program was slipped into a huge budget bill
without adequate hearings or debate. This legislative maneuver authorized a variety of so-called user
fees throughout our national forests and our national parks, but these fees are nothing more than
regressive taxes on families who can least afford to pay them.

Our amendment will delete this section of this bill that extends the life of these taxes for 2 more
years. If our amendment passes, this tax will expire in 1999, as was originally planned. It was
planned as a pilot project to see if this is a good way to raise funds for our forests and parks.
Before we extend the fee demonstration program, we need to stop and find out if it is a good plan.

Mr. Chairman, in my district this new tax is called the Adventure Pass, and it has truly been a
terrible adventure for thousands of my constituents who visit Los Padres National Forest, which is in
our backyard up and down the central coast of California.

While it is a very local issue for my district, it affects 40 of the 155 national forests throughout this
country. It is in all of our backyards.

Since coming to Congress in March, I have received more angry calls, letters, and e-mails on this
topic than almost any other matter of Federal policy, and I brought with me today here a sampling
of the letters that I have received from people who have never contacted their Federal
representatives on any issue and have been motivated to express their deep concerns to me.

My hometown newspaper, the Santa Barbara NewsPress, which is the largest in the district, has
eloquently captured, as colleagues can see the title here, `End the adventure.' This is the sentiment
for this new tax and this editorial ends with this statement: `The Forest Service should end the
Adventure Pass for an extended and permanent hike.'

Wealthy people might not think much of paying $5 to take their family for an afternoon hike or a
twilight drive to watch the sunset. But for many working families in my district, this tax has basically
eliminated a popular recreational activity and diminished our quality of life.

Mr. Chairman, to make matters worse, American families already pay some of their hard earned
money to the U.S. Government to maintain our national parks and forests.

This much user fee, therefore, represents a double tax and it is wrong.

Let me be clear. I support adequate funding for the U.S. Forest Service, but let us find more
equitable sources for this money. I support the DeFazio amendment that will require mining
companies to pay their fair share for extracting profit from the public lands. And I support the Furse
proposal to reduce the inflated subsidies paid to timber companies who make their money cutting
down trees in public forests.

It is just not fair that our constituents must pay a fee to hike, picnic or see a sunset in our national
forests when big logging and mining companies get subsidies for their activities on these same public
lands. What this amounts to is a direct subsidy from the pockets of working families to the offices of
corporate America, and this is wrong.

Mr. Chairman, I want to make a special appeal to my Republican friends. I have joined many of
them to cut other unfair taxes, specifically the capital gains tax. Please join with us today to eliminate
the unwarranted extension of an equally egregious tax on working Americans.

Let us end the Recreational Pass Demonstration Project misadventure. This adventure pass which is
a misadventure. Let us go back to the drawing board. Let us have hearings on this demonstration
program and conduct a full and open debate on its merits.