65 



uncategorically obtains a fair market value. This concludes my tes- 

 timony. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I would be 

 happy to answer questions that the subcommittee may have. 



[The prepared statement of Mr. Beck can be found at the end of 

 the hearing.] 



Mr. Hansen. Thank you, Mr. Beck. We appreciate your testi- 

 mony. In exercising the prerogative of the Chair, I would like to 

 have Mr. Ray Gardner, Chief Executive Officer of Snowbird, re- 

 spond for a few moments if he would. We will give you five min- 

 utes, Ray. 



STATEMENT OF RAY GARDNER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

 SNOWBIRD SKI RESORT, UTAH 



Mr. Gardner. Thank you very much, Mr, Chairman. It is kind 

 of you to invite me to do this. Mrs. Chenoweth and members of the 

 subcommittee, I do not have prepared testimony here today, but I 

 do have some observations that I think may be helpful to the com- 

 mittee. 



First, I am familiar with the testimony of Mr. Mosgrove and Mr. 

 Beck and subscribe to it wholeheartedly. Snowbird is one of those 

 resorts that is located both on private as well as public land. Sev- 

 enty-five percent of the ski mountain is owned by the Forest Serv- 

 ice; 25 percent by Snowbird. All of our facilities, that is our hotels, 

 our restaurants, our other facilities, sporting goods stores, et 

 cetera, at the base of the mountain are totally on private land. 



Under the Graduated Rate Fee System, there has been constant 

 conflict, since our permit was written to amend and allow the 

 Graduated Rate Fee System into our permit about 10 years ago, 

 with the Forest Service constantly trying to get us to pay fees on 

 the revenues that are generated on our private land, simply under 

 their theory that it is somehow related to that which goes on on 

 the mountain; this in spite of the fact that their own Forest Service 

 manual clearly states that only those businesses which are located 

 on private land which are directly related and essential to the use 

 of the mountain are to be included within the fee system. 



The latest effort of the Forest Service a matter of a few months 

 ago was to try to get us to include in the revenue the Bases, our 

 532-room hotel, which cost us many millions of dollars to build. 

 Now, I am pleased to say that with the advent of the new Forest 

 Service supervisor in our forest, we have found a much more coop- 

 erative effort, and I believe that we are in the process of resolving 

 some of these difficulties. 



I bring this up only to point out that the Graduated Rate Fee 

 System is nothing short of a nightmare for any resort that is lo- 

 cated partially on private land and partially on Forest Service land. 

 We have come to the Congress because we need Congress's help in 

 replacing that very difficult and combative system with a system 

 such as proposed in the bill that is here before the committee 

 which is a very simple bill and easily administered. 



One thing that I think is important to note is that the Forest 

 Service in the information given to the committee has indicated 

 that there would be about $200,000 a year savings to the Forest 

 Service in administering the fee system. At least that was the testi- 

 mony or information given in prior hearings. 



