Filming in Parks and Forests: The Alaskan Angle

July 29, 2015

You gotta love small, independent filmmakers, right? The Society of Environmental Journalists for years has opposed certain federal rules requiring fees and permits for "commercial filming" in National Parks and National Forests. The problem is that rangers sometimes use those rules to bar journalists from doing their Constitutionally protected jobs. And documentary film can be a form of journalism.

It's a complex issue, but the problem is not yet fixed. Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who chairs the Senate Energy Committee, has proposed a bill (S 566) that would (among other things) set a flat $200 annual fee to permit unlimited shooting by film crews of five or fewer. In response to a committee question, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said that "still photography and news-gathering activities generally do not require a permit."

Now Corbin Hiar reports for E&E Daily that in an interview Murkowski revealed that her nephew, an independent Portland filmmaker, faces the fees-and-permits barrier when he wanted to shoot near her father's home — surrounded by the Tongass National Forest.

The Society of Environmental Journalists has gone on record opposing a previous version of Murkowski's bill. But it would hardly be fair to suggest her support for the blanket permit is about family gain. As she points out, filming the outdoors is a big industry in Alaska. She is representing her constituents.

SEJ urged in 2014 that the bill be amended to make clear in statutory language that journalism — broadly conceived — is exempt from the fee-and-permit requirement.