California State Parks and Recreation skims off $60 million a year from our state fuel tax. It hoards this money in its Off Highway Vehicle Division (OHV) "Trust Fund".
How did this happen? In 1972, the off-highway vehicle industry and its Sacramento insiders pulled off a coup called the Chappie Z'berg
Act. The OHV industry uses our fuel tax to provide state vehicular recreation areas (svra's) for their products. No other state does this.
As the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and others have stated, the surplus State Parks is hoarding from our fuel
tax is an outrage, and should be used to keep our parks open. PEER also warns that if we allow our state parks to close,there could be lawsuits that would cost more than keeping them open.
The Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area is the crown jewel of the industry's California svra's because it uses our beach
for its products. That use of our beach is in violation of California Public Resources Code 5001.95. This illegality and others are ignored because of the industry lobby, which is empowered by the OHV Trust Fund, and regulatory agencies, such as Fish and Game, who borrow from it. Let's save our state parks and stop subsidizing the primarily non-U.S.off-highway vehicle industry.
-- Nell Langford - Pismo Beach
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