> ...Personally, this is great. It solves a lot
> of headaches, especially the allocation question. It is also a plan that we
> will have to sell to America, one based on fairness. The outfitters will
> fight this tooth and nail, ...
With the system we have now, an allocation of commercial user days
is a valuable item. User days are passed through the generations in
family-owned businesses. They are worth a lot of money because
those who have them can earn substantial profits selling river trips.
A private permit, on the other hand, is worthless (from a monetary
point of view). You can't sell it. You can't sell space on a trip.
The only thing you can do with one is go to the river and have a
good time.
If you remove the distinction between private permits and commercial
permits, then any launch permit is potentially valuable. In the
hands of a commercial operation, it could be used to generate a
significant profit. In your proposed new world of open competition,
de-regulation, and loosened restrictions, there would certainly be
a financial incentive for commercial companies to try to control
as many permits as they can.
In the arena of high-demand tickets for rock concerts and sporting
events, there are ethically-challenged scalpers who pay homeless
people to stand in line and buy up whatever ticket allocation is
allowed. The scalpers, of course, take the tickets and re-sell
them at a huge profit. The poor music/sports fan ends up having
to cough up big bucks or sit at home. Now I'm not saying that any
of the river companies currently doing business in the GC would ever
do anything so devious (and I hope one of them will give me a free
breakfast sometime for making that comment), but the potential for
abuse is certainly there.
Dave Kehs
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