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Show Kent Frost Testifies On BLM Tour Rules Kent Frost, Monticello tour operator, recently testified at the fifth and final discussion of new BLM regulations for enforcing en-forcing recreation vehicle ve-hicle fees on the public domain under BLM jurisdiction. jur-isdiction. The meeting was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico last weekend week-end under the auspices of Utah State University. Included in Mr. Frost's testimony were the following fol-lowing points brought out in prior meetings: "With School Sections, mining claims, homesteads. National Na-tional Park land, State Park land and Indian Reservation Re-servation land, it is impossible im-possible in this checkerboard check-erboard system to know when one is on BLM land. "Collection of fees would impose bookkeeping bookkeep-ing hardships on all these groups, particularly on tour guides. Imagine the hours of bookkeeping, figuring out and reporting report-ing the time spent each day traveling through special sections of the people's own domain. "This procedure will be an added cost to the government. The BLM will collect a maximum of a couple of thousand dollars a year, and it will cost twice that for the Bureau to keep the records. "It penalizes and alienates, ali-enates, among other good groups, the very group tour guides which has proved to be a positive force in protecting pro-tecting the land. Tour operators constantly clean up litter, prevent fires, protect delicate sites, partly because they will be returning with more guests. Vandals, Van-dals, and some hunters, would not be controlled any more than before. "It achieves no specific, spe-cific, valuable purpose for BLM or, even more importantly, for the public pub-lic interest. This should be the first requirement for any new regulation." The discussion at the meeting centered around new Bureau of Land Management Man-agement regulations which went into use this year. The regulation requires re-quires fees for use of BLM land. by such groups as tour operators, oper-ators, church groups and Boy Scouts, along with other organized groups. |