FEDERAL SPENDING BILL MAY LEAVE FOREST FEES IN PLACE FOR NEXT DECADE.

Byline: Staff and Wire Services

ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST - Visitor fees that were due to expire in national forests in Southern California and elsewhere are likely to remain for at least 10 more years.

The provision extending the Adventure Pass fees at Angeles, Los Padres, San Bernardino and Cleveland national forests was included in a giant spending bill approved last month by Congress, though not yet signed by President George W. Bush.

The fees started in 1997 in the four heavily used Southern California forests in what was supposed to be a 27-month experiment. They are $5 a day or $30 a year for anyone who parks a car in a forest to hike, hunt, picnic, fish, paddle in a stream or do almost anything else.

People don't need the pass to park somewhere that a fee is already charged, such as a ski area or campground.

Nationally, the fees generate about $170 million a year for the Forest Service and the Interior Department, which use the money to maintain restrooms, collect trash and provide other amenities.

But the extension angered advocacy groups for outdoor enthusiasts and lawmakers from the West, the area most affected.

``It's one thing to charge a modest fee for campgrounds,'' said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. ``But to charge a fee to park a car on the side of a logging road ... is nothing more that a stealth double tax for hikers, hunters or anyone wishing to spend a day at the beach or in the forest with their family.''

The fees were originally supposed to expire in two years. But Congress approved two-year extensions through 2004, then last month voted to extend them for at least 10 years.

DeFazio said the measure was inserted into the $388 billion spending bill at the last minute by Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, an appropriations subcommittee chairman who has no public lands in his district.

``This was a victory of pork over principle,'' said Robert Funkhouser, president of the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition in Colorado, which opposes the fees.

A spokesman for Regula did not return a call seeking comment.

House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Stockton, noted that the bill stipulates that only developed sites - those with some type of restroom or picnic area - can charge fees.

Assistant Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett called the new law ``a very important accomplishment'' by Congress. ``Our No. 1 reason (for the fees) is to provide enhanced services and facilities to the public,'' she said.

Scott Silver, executive director of Oregon-based Wild Wilderness, called the fees unfair, saying, ``The forest is our birthright'' and shouldn't require an admission fee.