Trying to keep mountain of fees

Bipartisan coalition proposes legislation to allow some ski-area rent to stay in forests.

Colorado’s ski areas operating on public land have sent record revenue-based rent checks back to Washington for the past four years as Forest Service administrators struggled under wildfire-ravaged budgets to review resort plans upgrades.

That could change with new legislation proposed Tuesday by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers including Colorado Rep. Scott Tipton and Sens. Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner, who joined Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden on the Ski Area Fee Retention Act, which would allow at least half of ski area permit fees to remain in the forests where the resorts operate.

Colorado’s White River National Forest — home to the country’s busiest ski areas, with 11 resorts, including Vail, Breckenridge and Aspen Snowmass — paid more than $20 million in rent last year.

But the forest has seen its annual budget dwindle to around $17 million from more than $30 million a decade ago. In that time, visitation has climbed close to 13 million. And resorts like Vail, Copper Mountain, Breckenridge and Snowmass have spent years awaiting agency approval for new summer amenities.

“Retaining some of the ski area fees in our national forests will help ... provide new opportunities for growth in our mountain communities,” Bennet said.

The ski resort industry has been lobbying for ski area fee retention for years. Wyden, a Democrat, has included fee retention in the Recreation Not Red Tape legislation for the last two years. This time, the industry pushed to have fee retention in its own bill, which was introduced Tuesday in the Senate and in the House by Tipton, a Republican, and New Hampshire Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, a Democrat.

“We view this as no-brainer,” said Geraldine Link, policy director at the National Ski Areas Association. “It will help move the process along when a ski area wants to upgrade its lifts or add snowmaking or invest in a mountain bike park.”

Ski areas on public land send the U.S. Treasury about $37 million a year, about $25 million of that coming from Colorado. The bill would allow forests that collect more than $15 million annually to keep 50 percent of the fees collected while forests with less than $15 million in ski area fees would retain 65 percent.

Vail Resorts’ Colorado ski areas paid $9.3 million last year.

“We support keeping the fees that are generated on the land close to the land to benefit both the environment and the local communities where we operate our resorts,” Vail Resorts spokeswoman Kelly Ladyga said. “It’s a truly sustainable approach.”