Barring the Way to the Outdoors

With considerable flourish, President Reagan appointed a Commission on Americans Outdoors more than two years ago to study national recreation needs. At the end of 1986 Commission Chairman Lamar Alexander, the former Republican governor of Tennessee, presented a generally excellent report. The report thereupon disappeared into a black hole.

The report was accepted by Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel last Dec. 30 with a three-page statement that superficially applauded the commission but totally ignored its major recommendation. That proposal was to create a new national outdoor trust fund of $1 billion annually, administered by a nonprofit corporation and supported by federal receipts from the sale of non-renewable resources such as oil. The money would be issued as matching grants to state and local agencies.

The fund is not a new idea. It would replace the existing Land and Water Conservation Fund, which was proposed by a previous outdoor-recreation commission and which will expire in 1989. The existing fund collects about $900 million a year, and is supposed to be used for the purchase of federal parklands and to assist state and local governments in buying parks and recreation areas. But the Administration has done its best not to spend any money from the fund, although Congress has managed to squeeze out some appropriations for urgently needed federal parklands.

Even before the Alexander commission report was released, the White House insisted that some elements of the draft be toned down because they were too government-oriented. In fact, the final summary, which is all that has been made public so far, is quite in tune with the spirit of free enterprise. It is heavy on individual initiative, volunteerism, work by nonprofit groups and incentives for the private sector. The handsome and costly 30-page summary was published and printed free of charge by the National Geographic Society, whose president, Gilbert M. Grosvenor, served as commission vice chairman.

One excellent recommendation was for the creation of a series of greenways. “We can tie this country together with threads of green that everywhere grant us access to the natural world,” the summary said. Various groups already are working on such a greenway along the bed of the Santa Ana River from San Bernardino to the ocean, said Palm Springs Mayor Frank Bogert, a member of the Alexander commission.

In submitting the report to the Administration, Alexander said to Reagan: “As you asked, we have suggested a framework for national action and a blueprint for a crusade. Now we urge you to lead that crusade. Ask each American community to do for itself what you asked us to do for the nation.”

The response so far has been silence, except for pious platitudes from the secretary of Interior. One excuse is that a group called the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise has challenged the report in court on the ground that the commission held secret meetings. That is a sham. In fact, the commission met throughout the country and conducted a vigorous public campaign to get as much input as possible. In any event the lawsuit does not prevent the Administration from endorsing the ideals of the report.

The problem, of course, is that nasty $1-billion trust fund. Mayor Bogert said that the commission was adamant that the proposal not be dropped, as the White House had insisted. He added, “We said no. That was the No. 1 thing the people wanted.” The opinion surveys that the commission conducted showed that the public overwhelmingly favored more recreation areas and was more than willing to pay for them.

The Alexander commission has done a national public service, as requested by the President. The suppression of its report is an outrage.