Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How much land do the feds own in your state?

https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/grand-canyon-tourism-creates-509-million.htm

Grand Canyon, Ariz.– A new National Park Service (NPS) report shows that over 4.7 million visitors to Grand Canyon National Park in 2014 spent $509 million in communities near the park. That spending supported 7,846 jobs in the local area and had a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $711 million.

"Grand Canyon welcomes visitors from across the country and around the world," said Superintendent Dave Uberuaga. "We are delighted to share the story of this place and the experiences it provides. We also feature the park as a way to introduce our visitors to this part of the country and all that it offers. National park tourism is a significant driver in the national economy, returning $10 for every $1 invested in the National Park Service, and it's a big factor in our local economy as well. We appreciate the partnership and support of our neighbors and are glad to be able to give back by helping to sustain local communities."

The peer-reviewed visitor spending analysis was conducted by U.S. Geological Survey economists Catherine Cullinane Thomas and Christopher Huber and National Park Service economist Lynne Koontz. The report shows $15.7 billion of direct spending by 292.8 million park visitors in communities within 60 miles of a national park. This spending supported 277,000 jobs nationally; 235,600 of those jobs are found in these gateway communities. The cumulative benefit to the U.S. economy was $29.7 billion.

According to the 2014 report, most park visitor spending was for lodging (30.6 percent) followed by food and beverages (20.3 percent), gas and oil (11.9 percent), admissions and fees (10.2 percent) and souvenirs and other expenses (9.9 percent).

Certainly could. Require a fee or license to use the land. Sort of like the annual passes sold by the National Park system.

Enforcing that would be tricky considering the spaces involved.

It's called Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson. Sportsmen already pay for those lands. The non-sporting users pay little to nothing. Fix that.

FS used to make a profit partnering with Private sector... ranching, mining, logging, recreation ect. Private sector also improved the land with water, roads, infrastructure. Socialism has taken over the hierarchy and reduced private sector influences. Fire prevention used to be 15% of the budget but now is 50% causing the budget to expand over 7 billion for 2016.

This is mismanagement by the government but can be turn back by obviously allowing private sector to flourish again.

Kent

The FS has spent a big wad in the Sun Valley, ID area building hiking/biking trails. The hikers have spent nothing on them. The bikers are trashing them, though, by riding in mud and causing lots of erosion.

Fires are also the only natural disaster not treated as such for funding by the Feds. That should change. AUM fees for grazing on public lands need to be market rate, not well below market rate. Logging needs to happen for a myriad of reasons. Intelligent energy extraction and mineral extraction is needed where appropriate, with market rate lease fees or percentage contracts.

Definitely, under a fee for use system, every user would have to pay, not just the hunters and fishermen.

A rancher has to be able to put cattle out to have a marketable product... and he has to have profit coming in to maintain water sources, roads and ecology.

It's not an issue about fees until there is a market share to 'share'.

Kent

So by fair comparison, just to keep things on the up and up, and level across the board, not only should the land leases and oil and gas leases on public lands be made to fit the avg. market rate, but hunting, fishing, and recreational use should be brought up to scale with what the going rate is for the markets involving those things as well?

A few years ago the FS tried to charge for using some developed trail head parking lots. It didn't work. The howls were loud and effective.

Not only do ranchers pay an AUM fee, but they are responsible for maintaining fences, water and roads on their lease.

So, the fair thing would be to charge the same rate of fee for any trespass?

Dingell-Johnson and Pittman-Robertson already cover that. Without those funds, there wouldn't be any hunting and fishing to speak of at all anyway. When you are comparing consumptive uses like resource extraction and grazing to hunting, the comparison isn't even close to the impact on the lands and waters, and the sportsmen are the only group that pay anywhere close to what they have for maintenance and conservation. In FY15, it was well over $1B, all of which went back to on-the-ground conservation projects.

The thing to do is get out of their way to make a profit for both themselves and the FS so no tax money is needed.

Kent

Sure; assess them an 11% tax under Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson. See how well that goes over.

Liberals do seem to squeal like pigs under a gate, don't they?



They were really loud mouthy in NM trying to get all the game laws slanted towards the anti-hunters.

We argued that it was hunters that provide all the funding for NMG&F, and the ones spouting the liberal crap contributed nothing.

So, the NMG&F came up with a new fee that could be voluntarily paid by tree huggers that would contribute to the department's overall budget.

The following year, the entire revenue from that was about $250.

They don't want to contribute. They just want to bitch.

That's what it SHOULD be.

Not how it is though.

One thing about grazing that the liberals overlook - fire control. Cheat grass has become a major factor in large range fires. Cattle & sheep will eat it down when it's green. They can't eat it all but they do reduce it.

Exactly. There was a bill proposed Federally several years back that would have assessed the non-sporting recreational industry (skiing, climbing, biking, etc.) a tax on those goods of about 3%, to be used exactly like P-R and D-J. The howls from the non-sportsmen and the left were ear-splitting. As a result, they continue to pay nothing.

That could work.

You surely have to count the cost of the permit for ranching as well.

One cannot just go out and pick a place on public land, and throw some cows out there... They have to pay thousands of dollars per AUM to be able to run cows. On top of the grazing fees.

So, a hunter should pay for lease on public land he hunts, then pay the market usage fees every year too?

Just keeping things fair here....