Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/04/together-loud-strong.html
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What does this have to do with Pruitt & the EPA? This is about Zinke & the Dept of the Interior.
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To compensate, the EPA is reducing the size of the parks, so the per-acre admission fee remains the same.
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Forget it; he’s rolling.
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Yeah, this is Dept of Interior, although like the EPA (and the rest of Trump’s cabinet), it’s headed by someone explicitly opposed to its mission.
The goal here is to raise fees so high that no one can use them. Then the Dept of Interior sells them off to resource-extraction interests because “nobody uses them.”
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More visitors means more litter. So that’s a plus, and lower revenue is a plus too!
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I wonder, if they lowered the entry cost, would that entice more people to visit the parks and thus raise revenue? Or is the $25 already the sweet spot in the diagram between people who want to visit the parks and people who can afford to?
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Gah, right you are! Thanks. Brain-o!
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They should have an annual membership, which all citizens have. I could pay the fees associated it as a percentage of my income, say… every April 15th?
/s this should be covered by the taxes I already pay. The parks should be free for all to enjoy.
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Much this. They are public lands owned by the people. Asking us to pay an entry free is crazy.
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I have to research this, but suspect the park fees go to provide services, like rangers and interpretive centers and rescues for tourists, deliberately doing stoopid stuff or otherwise.
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Zinke is the prototype of the tRump toady.
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Yep! I know a couple of seasonal Parks people, and they’ve had to stop repairing trails and concentrate on litter & graffiti removal, thanks to all of our newly-arrived residents who want CO to look like the state they just left.
Easy mistake to make: doctorow confused Quisling-Apparatchik EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt with Quisling-Apparatchik Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
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If the funding for parks was actually enough I would agree but sadly our taxes barely cover any of the operating budget. I happily buy an annual pass at what I believe was $90 most recently.
Also our forest service, which is separate from national parks and free to use, is terribly underfunded. In CO there are 2 or 3 rangers to cover an area from Ft Collins area to I70. We have significant problems with a transient population that uses the forest for housing and a convenient trash dump from spring-fall with little regard to fire danger.
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I just bought an “all parks” pass this past weekend and it was $80. The lowest option, a week pass, was $30.
I really like what the park service does, and also happily give my money to them, but (like NASA), I wish we could prioritize funding for them (not to mention maybe some infrastructure spending) over all the military dick swinging and other BS that my money actually gets spent on.
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Why can’t taxes pay for it all.
Why can’t the parks be fully funded. Why do they not have enought resources to protect the important properties that are in their care?
All about political will.
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Sure, why not. After the windfall to the middle class from the recent tax plan, there’s plenty of extra money to burn now!
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It’s getting in the way of exploitation.
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