A guy I know in Bend, Ore., loves to wander through the nearby Newberry National Volcanic Monument. Even though he’s retired and on a modest budget, Scott continued to visit after the Forest Service started charging entrance fees a few years ago. He was thrilled to learn recently that a new federal law prohibited entrance fees.

The next time Scott visited Newberry, sure enough the entrance fee was gone, but he found to his dismay that it had been replaced with 15 separate fees to visit sites within the monument. Scott has had a glimpse of the future of public land recreation.

What do you call a law that was never introduced, never had hearings, never was voted on, but was passed anyway? Unfair? Undemocratic? That is the story behind the Recreation Enhancement Act, better known to its opponents as the Recreation Access Tax, or RAT. It was passed last November as a “midnight rider” on the congressional Omnibus Appropriations bill.

This stealth legislation authorizes the expansion of fee sites on most public lands. Worse yet are the Forest Service’s interim guidelines for implementing the RAT, and their program to survey other recreation sites. The agency’s true intentions are clearly shown by the creation of entirely new categories of recreation fees and permits for river and road corridors, hot springs, trail heads, wilderness camping and equestrian, biking and motorized trails.

The pending implementation of the RAT has prompted angry resolutions demanding its repeal by the Montana, Oregon, Colorado and Alaska legislatures. Testimony for the Montana resolution came from the Montana Wilderness Association, Montana Logging Association, the Sierra Club and the Montana Trail Vehicle Riders Association. Strange bedfellows indeed.

The federal government has been systematically starving the national forests’ recreation and maintenance budgets for years. Last year that budget for the Panhandle National Forest was exactly the same as it has been for the last 15 years. At historic inflation rates, that is actually a 45 percent decrease from 1990.

A few years ago, my wife and I were volunteer fire lookouts in Washington state’s Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The firefighting crew there made heroic efforts to provide us with everything we needed, but they had to do it with spit, cardboard and ceiling wax, because they had insufficient money for maintenance. It should not be that way.

No wonder the forest managers are tempted to institute more fees in more areas. Inadequate budgets, together with the passage of RAT, now give them powerful financial incentives for development of public lands in order to lure more visitors to increase revenue.

The ironic part of this is that they may make no money at all from these revenues. The Government Accounting Office did a study of the present fee program and showed that the cost of collections and enforcement was at least 50 percent of the amount collected through fees. This is a heck of a way to run a railroad — or a national forest.

The RAT marks a radical change in the way our public lands are funded. Charging fees for land we already own, and maintain through our income taxes, is tantamount to double taxation. Fees for accessing public lands also constitute a regressive tax, discriminating economically against those least able to pay.

The time to stop the RAT is now, before it goes fully into effect. As Lanie Johnson, my wife and one of the No-RAT Coalition leaders said, “If you wait until the robber is inside your house, it doesn’t matter if you lock the door.”

Supporters of an Idaho anti-RAT resolution will present their case to state and local representatives at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 22, at the Sandpoint Community Hall.

Sandpoint resident Phil Hough hiked the entire Pacific Crest Trail last year. He had hoped to meet up with a friend in Arizona. When his friend found out he would have to pay $50 for a Northwest Forest pass to park at the trailhead, or else drive another 35 miles to purchase a daily pass, he understandably backed out.

Paying fees to use public lands is contrary to the idea that these lands belong to the American people and are places where everyone is granted access and is welcome.