SAVE Tesla Park

Why SB 249 is needed.

SB 249 (Allen) which will extend the OHMVR program and reform some governance and resource conservation elements of the program passed the Senate in early June and its first Assembly hurdle at the Assembly Water Parks and Wildlife Committee on July 11, 2017.

SB 249, which has been amended several times, still faces fierce opposition from the OHV lobby which has fought to block any correction in fuel tax transfers and improvements in natural and cultural resource protection requirements. 

In August, SB 249 will next go to the Assembly Appropriations Committee and then on for final passage and signature in September.  

Watch for updates on the bill.  

As documented by the State’s own fuel tax studies, the OHMVR program and OHV expansion is supported by excessive fuel tax transfers that have nothing to do with OHV recreation. The State conducted a study of fuel taxes transferred to the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation (OHMVR) Division in 2007 and 2006 and again in a just released updated study.

• 2006 State Fuel Tax Study
• 2007 State Fuel Tax Study
• 2017 State Fuel Tax Study 

The errors in fuel tax transfers are in three main categories: 1) OHMVR gets fuel taxes for “motorized access to non- motorized recreation” (e.g., hiking, camping, fishing, etc.); 2) overestimate of unregistered OHVs in use; and 3) overestimate of street legal 4WD/AWD vehicles engaged in OHV recreation use.  As a result, the OHMVR Division receives more than double the fuel tax that it rightly should based on use. 

With State Parks own surveys showing that OHV recreation is a small fraction of total outdoor recreation use and demand, and attendance at many OHV riding areas such a Carnegie SVRA actually decreasing, as a matter of fiscal accountability, transparency, and simple fairness and balance, the OHV fuel tax transfers need to be corrected.

At the least, fuel taxes associated with “motorized access to non-motorized recreation” should be redirected so that other State Parks and other parks systems rightly receive fuel tax funds to support access to non-motorized recreation. SB 249 starts to correct this boondoggle. 

Carnegie SVRA – Why we need to protect Tesla

At a time when science and facts are disregarded, it is disturbing to see our own California state government, and specifically the State Parks Off Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Division be purveyors of “alternative facts.” 

The OHMVR Division concluded that there would be no significant impacts from opening Tesla to OHV recreation use (except for air quality). Really?

Read the Scientist Consensus Statement on the Ecological Value of the State Parks Alameda-Tesla Expansion Area (“Tesla”) and the Policy Imperative to Permanently Preserve Tesla in its Natural State with no OHV use for the scientific reasons why Tesla should be permanently preserved.

Illegal Hill climb at Carnegie SVRA

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