I've posted on the sordid tale of the coastal recreational fishing license (CRFL) in NC. It finally, after 10 years of debate, passed last week. From the N&O article (At last ...):
The bill, which passed the Senate in a 49-0 vote last week, made it through the House 76-36. North Carolina has been the only state on the Southeast coast without a recreational license.
Proponents of the license -- chiefly recreational anglers -- have wanted a license established for better collecting data from anglers and using the revenues to help manage marine stocks. Opponents -- primarily commercial fishermen -- fear increased regulation on equipment and harvests once recreational impacts are studied and recreational anglers are counted and heard.
The costs (saltwater fishing license ...):
An annual license will cost $15 for residents of North Carolina and $30 for non-residents. A short-term license, valid for 10 consecutive days, will be available at a cost of $5 for residents and $10 for non-residents. Children under 16 will not be required to purchase a license, and a resident subsistence waiver will be available through county social services departments.
And, the reaction from the typical newspaper interview is that a user fee is a tax:
Weekend anglers on the beach near Cape Point didn't embrace the recreational fishing license. "We don't have to buy fishing licenses in New York, and I'm really surprised that I'll have to buy one here," said Shaun Egan, who lives in Mattituck, NY. "It isn't so much the cost as the fact that it's just another step in diminishing the special atmosphere of Hatteras Island where people can still feel a connection to the natural world. I hate to see the island turn into a place where people have to pay fees to enjoy the outdoors."
"There's already a pretty steep occupancy tax we pay when we come to the Outer Banks," said Andy McGowan of Cutchogue, NY. "There's usually seven of us, so that'll be $70 more in taxes even if we just want to go fishing once during our vacation. I suspect some people will think twice before wetting a line."
I suspect that there will be very few who will think twice before wetting a line.
One result from behavioral economics is that an additional fee of $10 added to a trip cost of $1000 has less impact than an additional fee of $10 added to a trip cost of $10. Non-residents who want to fish one day to get away from the kids, or take the kids fishing, will see the license fee as a blip and keep fishing. Or, maybe they'll stage a protest the first year and boycott fishing. Then the second year they'll realize that the value of fishing is more than $10 and abandon their "principles" (public goods should be explicitly free).
It is more likely that residents who only fish once each year will think twice. And if they do think twice, then the value of going fishing is close to $10.
Of course, it is an empirical question. In 2007, it will be interesting to see what happens to fishing participation and revenues.
Here is some data on fishing participation in NC from a MRFSS participation time series query:
Year Coastal NonCoastal OutofState Total 2000 415,535 229,143 1,277,102 1,921,780 2001 453,932 251,382 1,301,346 2,006,660 2002 409,410 225,814 1,129,980 1,765,204 2003 523,825 280,868 1,298,232 2,102,925 2004 613,351 290,080 1,151,984 2,055,415 Average 483,211 255,457 1,231,729 1,970,397 2005* 622,868 300,865 1,155,724 2,079,457 2006* 669,421 316,001 1,130,389 2,115,811 2007* 715,973 331,137 1,105,054 2,152,164 *Simple forecast based on 2000-2004 projections.
In my CRFL paper, we used the participation estimates from a hypothetical CRFL to forecast revenue:
If 79% of all anglers purchase the annual license and 7.4% purchased the one-week license, $18 million in new revenues would be available to fund fisheries management programs.
Using these estimates and the 5-year average number of anglers (which is less than the projectsion) the annual revenue would be $25 million (the newspapers are saying that revenues will "run as high as $19.2 million").