{"id":27208,"date":"2020-01-31T10:36:52","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T16:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=27208"},"modified":"2020-01-31T10:36:52","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T16:36:52","slug":"free-park-entry-permit-sought-for-disabled-veterans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=27208","title":{"rendered":"Free park entry permit sought for disabled veterans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Certain disabled veterans could apply for a free lifetime state park entry permit under a bill heard Jan. 30 by the Natural Resources Committee.

\"Sen.
Sen. Tim Gragert<\/figcaption><\/figure> <\/p>\n

LB770, introduced by Sen. Tim Gragert of Creighton, would require the state Game and Parks Commission to create and issue a free park entry permit for qualified disabled veterans in addition to the existing annual and temporary permits.<\/p>\n

Of the 40 states that issue park permits, Gragert said, 19 offer free permits to disabled veterans. <\/p>\n

To qualify, a veteran must be a Nebraska resident who has been honorably discharged and either rated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as 50 percent or more disabled as a result of service in the U.S. military or receiving a pension from the department as a result of total and permanent disability that is not connected to military service. <\/p>\n

The permits would be perpetual and would become void only if a veteran no longer meets the eligibility criteria. <\/p>\n

LB770 would increase the maximum fee for a nonresident motor vehicle annual park entry permit from $45 to $65. It also would increase the maximum fee for a nonresident motor vehicle temporary park entry permit from $8 to $12. <\/p>\n

Gragert said LB287, introduced by Sen. Dan Quick last session, would raise the maximum fee for a nonresident park entry permit from $45 to $55 to cover the cost of capital maintenance. He said the further increase proposed under LB770 would help cover the free permit\u2019s cost.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe the nonresident fee could be raised even further considering that the vast majority of visitors to Lake McConaughy are from Colorado, where the cost of a park permit is $80,\u201d Gragert said. <\/p>\n

Greg Holloway testified in support of the bill on behalf of the Nebraska Veterans Council, saying many veterans have expressed interest in a free entry permit. He said visiting the state\u2019s parks can be therapeutic for veterans even if, like him, they no longer hunt or fish. <\/p>\n

Timothy McCoy, deputy director of the state Game and Parks Commission, also testified in support. He said implementing LB770 would be straightforward because the commission already offers a free lifetime hunting and fishing permit to the same categories of disabled veterans.<\/p>\n

Dan Wills testified in support of the bill on behalf of Disabled American Veterans. <\/p>\n

\u201cBy doing something like this,\u201d he said, \u201cyou\u2019re giving opportunities to veterans [who] otherwise cannot afford to go to our state parks.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one testified in opposition to the bill and the committee took no immediate action on it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Certain disabled veterans could apply for a free lifetime state park entry permit under a bill heard Jan. 30 by the Natural Resources Committee. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[251],"class_list":["post-27208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natural-resources","tag-sen-tim-gragert"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27208"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27210,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27208\/revisions\/27210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}