Bruce F. Vento: “I will join the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) reluctantly in opposition to this. I have heard some discussion here…”

“I will join the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) reluctantly in opposition to this. I have heard some discussion here about authorizing this type of program. The fact is, when I served in the capacity of subcommittee chairman, we tried several times to authorize this type of program. In fact, we did do some authorization with regard to it. The fact is that some of the fees that are included under this in terms of what I would call user fees, not entrance fees but user fees, are authorized and have long been authorized by the various land management agencies. But they choose, without the moral authority of Congress, to not implement those types of fees. Because of this fee demonstration program I think they are now into the swing of things. And the fact is as far as the entrance fees in terms of the parks and forests and some of the other areas which are authorized by this and necessary and working, they are dealing with buses, they are dealing with the tour boats that come into Saint Croix, as an example, that were paying no fees in terms of entrance. The buses, they are paying considerable fees now when they go through our various parks and they were paying literally nothing before.”