The bills are “to further clarify authorities and duties of the Secretary of Agriculture in issuing ski area permits on National Forest System lands.” If passed and signed, their effect will be profound on the ski industry, accomplishing, among other things:
- The establishment of a simple and consistent fee policy to replace one that was enormously complex and subject to widely different interpretations by different Forest Supervisors.
- The limitation of ski area rental fees to activities on Forest Service lands. This will halt what was an increasing appetite of the Forest Service to assess fees against hotels, shops and other businesses entirely on private land on the theory that they could exist only because the ski area operation had a permit.
- Provision for construction of affordable housing on Forest Service lands — hitherto a strict prohibition. (This is not yet in the Senate version.)
- Withdrawal of land within the boundaries of the ski area permit from the provisions of old mining laws which were being used by ersatz miners and others to extort money or concessions from the government or the ski area permittee.
These bills are the result of months of work and lobbying by American Ski Federation (ASF), with strong support from USIA. In March and April, there was a steady stream of ski resort and regional ski area association executives being guided on their visits to key senators and congresspeople. “Joe and Carrie [Prendergast and Bowers of ASF] are incredibly skilled and professional when it comes to working the halls of congress,” said an admiring Chris Diamond (Mt. Snow and 1st vice chairman of USIA). “The gathering of strong industry statistics that USIA’s Tom Ptach did was also essential,” Diamond added. “When he was through with his number-crunching we had a pretty darned strong story to tell.”
The careful and thorough lobbying paid off when the Senate bill was introduced by Senators Wirth (D. Colo.), Leahy (D. Vt.) and Seymour (R. Calif.), and co-sponsored by no less than 24 other senators. The House bill was introduced by Representatives Williams (D. Mont.) and Marlenee (R. Mont.) and was co-sponsored by another 45 members. By any Washington standards, this was a stunning performance.
The legislation, in its “findings and purposes” preamble, makes the case that, “ski areas occupy less than one twentieth of one percent of national forest lands nationwide,” while emphasing that the ski operations have played a vital role in the local and regional economies, especially in some low-income, rural counties.
It pleads the case of high capital costs and low profitability for the ski industry, while pointing to the rich dollar yield the government gets from its ski permit leases compared to that of other Forest Service users.
The proposed fee structure is designed to be “revenue neutral” compared to the existing GRFS fee system — that is, to yield the same revenue to the government. Some permittees would pay more — especially the larger operations; some smaller permittees would probably pay less. But all would gain from the abrupt simplification of the system and the much easier recordkeeping it would entail. As Senator Wirth put it in his remarks introducing the bill, “Something is wrong when the cost of calculating the fee is more than the fee itself.”
The legislative approach to the problems faced by ski area permittees was decided upon by the Public Lands Committee of USIA in January. There had been a debate over whether negotiating differences with the Forest Service might not produce more favorable results, but eventually, the pre-emptive move of introducing legislation was decided upon — a tougher course, with higher downside risks, but also with greater potential for long-term rewards.
Of course, the passage of legislation is a lot different from its introduction. However, prospects at presstime seemed good what with hearings being scheduled in May and June for, respectively, the House and Senate bills. In Washington terms, this is moving at warp-speed.
