Senators introduce cabin fee reform bill

Seven U.S. Senators have introduced a bill aimed at making fees for cabins on Forest Service land more affordable and predictable.

Annual fees for the 14,000 cabins on national forest lands across the U.S. skyrocketed in the 1990s because the fee was based on market values and the value of recreation land soared. In one oft-cited case, a lot was appraised at $660,000, so the annual cabin fee went to $33,000 per year.

Congress passed the Cabin User Fee Fairness Act in 2000 to address the problem. The goal of the act was to address the “inconsistency” of appraisal procedures, but the act was not implemented until 2009.

Recognizing that many Western families have owned cabins on leased Forest Service land for generations but have been forced to abandon the cabins because of the high fees, Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus and five other senators introduced the Cabin Fee Act of 2013 on July 23.

“Forest Service cabins are an important part of Montana’s outdoor heritage, and many families have cherished them for decades,” Tester said. “This bipartisan measure lets families know what they can plan for so they have the opportunity to pass these family treasures down to their kids and grandkids.”

The stated goal of the new bill is to implement “a simple, equitable and predictable procedure for determining cabin user fees.”

“This bill is about fairness and upholding Montana’s outdoor way of life,” Baucus said. “We’re one step closer to making sure the U.S. Forest Service’s current fee system doesn’t stand in the way of the Montana family tradition of passing cabins from generation to generation.”

According to the introduced bill, the Forest Service must complete the current appraisal cycle within two years of the bill’s passage. Until that’s done, the agency must assess an interim fee based on the 2000 act but limited to an increase of no more than 25 percent over the previous year. The interim fee also can be no more than $5,500 per year.

The new bill also sets up an 11-tier fee schedule. The annual fee for the 6 percent of cabins with the lowest appraised value would be $500. The fee for the top 1 percent would be $5,500. Sixty-four percent of the cabins would have fees ranging from $1,000 to $2,000.

The fee schedule would be adjusted on a 5-year rolling average based the gross domestic product, and a new $1,200 fee would be charged whenever a recreational residence changed ownership. The 2000 act would be repealed once the new bill is implemented.