{"id":3167,"date":"2012-02-15T22:53:30","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T06:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/?p=3167"},"modified":"2012-02-15T22:53:30","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T06:53:30","slug":"9th-district-court-rules-against-the-forest-adventure-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/2012\/02\/15\/9th-district-court-rules-against-the-forest-adventure-pass\/","title":{"rendered":"9th District Court Rules against the Forest Adventure Pass"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a published opinion on February 9th<\/a>\u00a0reversed and remanded a lower court ruling that had dismissed a case against the U.S. Forest Service. \u00a0They found in Adams v. USFS that the Recreational Enhancement Act “unambiguously prohibits the Forest Service from charging fees in the Mount Lemmon HIRA for recreational visitors who park a car, then camp at undeveloped sites, picnic along roads or trailsides, or hike through the area without using the facilities and services.”<\/p>\n

Excerpted from the published opinion:<\/p>\n

“The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (\u201cREA\u201d)\u00a0prohibits the United States Forest Service from charging fees\u00a0\u201c[s]olely for parking, undesignated parking, or picnicking\u00a0along roads or trailsides,\u201d for \u201chiking through . . . without\u00a0using the facilities and services,\u201d and \u201c[f]or camping at undeveloped sites . . . .\u201d 16 U.S.C. \u00a7 6802(d)(1)(A), (D) & (E).<\/p>\n

“Despite these clear prohibitions, the Forest Service collects\u00a0fees from all drivers who park their vehicles in a mile-wide\u00a0piece of the Coronado National Forest running along the 28\u2013mile Catalina Highway, the only paved road to the summit of\u00a0Mount Lemmon, a heavily used recreational area an hour\u2019s\u00a0drive from downtown Tucson, Arizona.<\/p>\n

“Four recreational visitors sued, seeking a declaration that \u00a0the Forest Service was exceeding the scope of its authority\u00a0under the REA by charging fees to those who drive to Mount\u00a0Lemmon, park their cars, then picnic, hike, or camp in nearby\u00a0undeveloped areas. Plaintiffs also sought to enjoin the Forest\u00a0Service from collecting such fees. The district court granted\u00a0defendants\u2019 Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. Plaintiffs\u00a0appealed. Because plaintiffs are correct that the Forest Service\u2019s fee structure contravenes the plain language of the\u00a0REA, we reverse the district court\u2019s dismissal of Count I\u00a0and\u00a0remand to allow plaintiffs to pursue that claim.”<\/p>\n

In CORBA’s ongoing relationship with the Forest Service, we understand that locally the Adventure Pass is a major source of their funding for on-the-ground projects, maintenance and services. Even with Adventure Pass fees, they are grossly under-funded.<\/p>\n

It is unclear at this point how the ruling will affect Southern California’s Angeles, Cleveland, Los Padres and San Bernadino National Forests, where the adventure pass program has been in place for more than a decade. Currently, fees are required for all vehicles that park within the forest boundary, even if, as in the plaintiff’s case, no facilities are used.\u00a0Many eyes will be watching when Adams v. USFS returns to the lower court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a published opinion on February 9th\u00a0reversed and remanded a lower court ruling that had dismissed a case against the U.S. Forest Service. \u00a0They found in Adams v. USFS that the Recreational Enhancement Act “unambiguously prohibits the Forest Service from charging fees in the Mount Lemmon HIRA for recreational […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,31,13],"tags":[251,166],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3168,"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3167\/revisions\/3168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}