Hey friends, thanks for your efforts in preserving public access to public lands, and for supporting First Amendment rights to Free Speech on public land.
We need to send letters to the members of the Energy & Natural Resource Committee, and to each of our respective Senators as well. We really need to flood these folks with mail. Over 300,000,000 people visited one of our 426 National Parks last year, and if 1% of 1% of those people would send a letter, we’d be looking like a pretty powerful grassroots lobby.
So, what are you waiting for? This is quick & painless. Take action today to preserve your free speech rights and access to your public lands. Together, we can preserve these lands for the “benefit and enjoyment of the people”.
Below is a letter that you can copy and paste, then email to your Senator. Please feel free to edit this letter to your own liking. You can tell your own story, or just copy, paste and send.
I would add your Senator’s name to the top, and don’t forget to add your name and address at the bottom, so they’ll know you’re a resident of their state. And if you’re sending the letter to the ENR, still put your address down there, as this helps support the legitimacy of your effort.
Need to find your Senators? You have two: Contact Your Senator
If you can, please send a letter to each member of the Energy and Natural Resource Committee.
Here is a list of members: Energy & Natural Resource Committee Members
Thank you again. Future generations will appreciate the quick & painless action you took today.
LETTER TO YOUR SENATOR:
Dear Senator,
My intention is to discuss two equally important issues that currently threaten public enjoyment of national parks and public lands.
I further hope to secure your support, and assistance, in an effort to provide a legislative remedy to a rapidly advancing assault on the American public’s ability to enjoy public lands.
Unfortunately, the National Park Service & other federal land management agencies have recently began to restrict:
1. Public Access to National Parks & Public Lands, and
2. The Free Speech rights of the citizenry to record their adventures on these lands with iPhones and small hand-held devices.
- Public Land Access:
Please add Restrictive Language to Title II of the America’s Outdoor Recreation Act.
Title II deals with the permanent renewal of the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, which if left unchanged will continue to allow a multi-billion dollar corporation to siphon monies from public lands.
The number of national parks that currently require reservations to enter their gates has exploded in the past 3 years, and access to many wilderness areas can now only be attained through a burdensome online reservation system, which is operated by a for-profit corporate entity.
Using the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) as legal cover, this arrangement annually hands tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in reservation fees, administration fees, and lottery fees to a multi-billion dollar government consultant/contractor named Booz Allen Hamilton through the Rec.gov portal.
Every-day public land users are left to compete for admission through costly, time-consuming online battles and lotteries for permits and reservations to their public parks. Most of these public land users assume that since they’re using a .gov domain, the fees associated with these reservations are used by the parks for the betterment of public facilities, which could not be further from the truth.
This arrangement is the subject of a recently filed class-action lawsuit against Booz Allen Hamilton, but I would hope that all U.S. Senators and Representatives would support adding language to the FLREA that would restrict the collection of third party “junk fees” associated with the entrance to, and use of, public lands.
The renewal of the FLREA is underway in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The provisions of this act are currently under review in Title ll of the aforementioned America’s Outdoor Recreation Act. The current proposal seeks to make the FLREA permanent. If the language of this act is left unchanged, the FLREA will continue to allow this nefarious arrangement.
It is my goal to bring this egregious violation of public trust to your attention. I further hope to acquire your support in the effort to provide such language additions to the FLREA that would eliminate the ability of third party contractors to extract funds from our public land agencies.
The current arrangement appears to promote a potential conflict of interest between the private sector’s pursuit of profits, and the public land management agencies’ duty to preserve public access to public lands. This does nothing but erode public trust in once-beloved agencies such as the National Park Service.
What You Can Do
Please suggest and support the addition of language that eliminates the ability of third party corporations to collect “junk fees” in association with public access to public lands. These lands belong to all Americans, and the current arrangement is completely inconsistent with the original mission of pioneers such as John Muir, Frederick Law Olmsted and Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Park Service.
We simply must not allow public access to our lands of heritage to become subject to the financial wizardry of a group of entrenched bureaucrats and corporate barons. Time is of the essence. Our nation desperately needs your assistance in ensuring that our world-famous parks remain a shining example to the peoples of this globe.
We are indeed a gifted nation, and fortunate to the extent that wise souls came before us with a mind to preserve these special places. Let us not allow these sacred temples of nature to become the proverbial piggy bank for a multi-billion dollar corporation.
Together, we can demonstrate to the citizens of the world, that national parks are, and indeed must forever be, preserved “for the benefit and enjoyment of the people”.
2. Free Speech Restriction:
Please amend filming restrictions in Title IV of America’s Outdoor Recreation Act
Title IV involves Free Speech restrictions implemented by the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Forest Service.
Officials within these departments have added language to federal commercial filming restrictions in national parks and public lands that require the securement of costly permits, even in productions that they themselves (NPS) describe as “low impact“.
NPS – Commercial Film Permit – See Section 3 – “Does commercial filming by individuals or small groups require a permit”
In recently revised regulations, the NPS has included “individuals or small groups that don’t use much equipment, but generate revenue by posting footage on websites, such as YouTube and TikTok”, within the confines of their commercial filming definition.
However, the regulations go on to say: “The primary focus of the NPS, however, is on commercial filming that has the potential to impact park resources and visitors beyond what occurs from normal visitor use of park areas. Examples of this type of filming are productions that use substantial equipment such as sets and lighting, productions with crews that exceed 5 people, and filming in closed areas, wilderness areas, or in locations that would create conflicts with other visitors or harm sensitive resources.”
This places the individual with an iPhone in a precarious legal position. The NPS has told a small content creator, whose presence represents no more a threat to a park’s natural resources or public enjoyment than the average hiker, that their filming activities are illegal, but that the NPS might not elect to prosecute them.
Unfortunately, these vague restrictions effectively place a “chilling effect” on the actions of every-day citizens who may have a monetized YouTube channel, yet want to post their outdoor adventures on various social media platforms. This punishes citizens who by chance, may have a monetized channel and want to publish a beautiful video from a one of our nation’s treasured national parks.
Commercial Film Permits in national parks have been common for more than two decades and were developed with consideration to large Hollywood film productions, such as Star Wars or Forest Gump. However, the legal discussions that led to such permits took place in an era prior to the technological revolution that now puts a capable video recording device (an iPhone) in the hands of the population at large.
Today, many “content creators” film their adventures in national parks and public lands and post them to various social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. The ability of the citizenry to film with something so simple as an iPhone could not be fathomed at the inception of the decision to apply commercial permit requirements to public lands.
A recent case (Price v Garland) regarding this issue has received some attention, and is currently being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, although it is currently unknown as to whether the Court will agree to hear the case.
This film permit process is burdensome, prohibitively expensive, and is a slap in the face to the millions of creators who produce such content for a viewing public, many of whom now lack the financial or physical ability to visit such lands on their own.
While there is a possibility that the Supreme Court will correct what many consider to be a violation of an absolute right to free speech, there are other means by which we can ensure that the public’s right to free speech on public lands is not left to the arbitrary wishes of the NPS.
Language is currently under consideration in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and it is my understanding that the Committee would like to have as much input and support as possible in the near future concerning this measure, as the language for the bill is soon to be finalized.
I would encourage you to consider the ramifications of the suppression of free speech that exist within these commercial filming requirements, and what they mean as a technologically advancing society moves forward through the 21st century.
The ability to film with a handheld device, and to broadcast it to the world in a matter of seconds, is revolutionary. This moment is akin to the time of Johannes Gutenberg and the development of movable type. Our public land management agencies are in danger of gravely restricting the distribution of information in a newly evolving digital landscape. A landscape of which, it appears, they have absolutely no understanding.
What You Can Do
While the proposed language of Title IV is a vast improvement over the current unconstitutional commercial film restrictions maintained by public land management agencies, there are a few changes which would drastically improve the scope of this act.
A -Please consider language which would more accurately define the word “involve” in the determination of the number of people associated with the filming activity. Many times, a content creator may be filming a cave tour, a rafting trip down the Grand Canyon, or even a ranger-led hike.
The members of that party may not be “involved” in his filming of that journey, but could possibly appear in the frame of the video. This gray area could be used to prosecute filmmakers who are in no way associated with the nameless people who may appear in the finished product.
B – Please support the addition of language that would include an ability to film with non-impacting handheld devices on wilderness lands. Designated wilderness lands include the summits of countless mountains, and the depths of countless canyons, upon which and in which the American public has a right to record their memories.
The Wilderness Act of 1964 designated 54 areas as wilderness, and today that number has grown to some 803 areas, & counting. Together, this means that more than 111,000,000 acres of the most scenic land on the planet, is off limits to someone who wants to pull out an iPhone and take a video of this spectacular scenery.
C – Please attempt to better define:
“(2) “(A)(i) “involves fewer than 6 individuals;” – What does “involves” mean? If a random stranger walks through a frame, does this film “involve” them?
“(3) “(F)(i) “involves a group of not fewer than 6 individuals and not more than 8 individuals;” – Once again, define: “involve”?
“(4) “(A) “involves more than 8 individuals;” – .Once again, define: “involve”?
“(5) “(D) “(i) “conduct the filming in a localized area that receives a high volume of visitation;” – What does the term “localized” mean? And what exactly is a “high volume of visitation”? Is this simply left to a ranger to decide?
D – Add language that explicitly removes the possibility that the de minimus and commercial permitting process be handed over to Recreation.gov, where additional fees will be incurred at the expense of public land users.
Thank You
I thank you in advance for your choice to stand consistent with the Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of Free Speech, and your support for the American public’s right to unencumbered access to public lands, which were, after all, set aside for the “benefit and enjoyment of the people”.
Public land management decisions across this nation affect hundreds of millions of Americans each year. Our parks and public lands comprise more than 28% of the landmass of America & received nearly 300,000,000 visitors in 2022.
Hopefully, with your help, we can keep these sacred lands free of restrictive & bureaucratic entrance regulations, while providing the citizens of this great nation the Free Speech rights that are guaranteed by our great nation’s founding documents.
Thank you again,
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME & ADDRESS
