WASHINGTON, D.C. The motorcoach industry is poised to power up a campaign to get officials in the District of Columbia to drop a controversial plan to require charter and tour buses to obtain short-term trip permits to bring tourists into the nations capital.

The citys transportation department plans to begin enforcing the measure Aug. 1, just as the summer tourism season reaches its peak.

'This is a penny wise and a pound foolish decision on their part,' said Victor Parra, president and chief executive of the United Motorcoach Association. 'Its just not a smart move at all.'

The measure, which was buried in a motor vehicles safety act adopted by the D.C. City Council last year, requires coach operators to pay $50 for a six-day permit for each one of their motorcoach that enters the district. The annual cost to large companies that make numerous trips to the district could top $100,000, making it prohibitive for operators.

As an alternative, the measure allows operators to buy a 'proportional registration' from their home state each year and pay the district a fee based on the number of visits each coach makes to the district. Industry executives panned that idea, too, saying it would be too complicated to work.

UMA and the American Bus Association both oppose the new fees, calling them simply a tax on motorcoach operations and saying they plan to vigorously fight them, including taking legal action.

'We are prepared and willing to go to court if necessary,' said Peter Pantuso, president and chief executive of the ABA, who charged that the fees were 'nothing but a money grab' and 'completely illegal.'

Early estimates of the amount of new revenue the fees could produce for the district each year are more than $1 million.

Parra and Pantuso both have met separately with city transportation officials to plead their cases, but so far have succeeded only in getting them to move the enforcement date of the measure forward to Aug. 1 from July 1. Rescinding the action, they said, actually would have to come from the city council.

'We hope by then they will come to the realization that this is no way to welcome visitors,' said Pantuso.

During the talks, he said, city officials first claimed the trip fee was to help pay for wear and tear on the citys streets and then later said it was due to environmental concerns. Pantuso countered by noting that heavy trucks cause much more wear and tear on the streets and pointing out that recent studies show that motorcoaches emit less carbon emissions than any other mode of transportation, including cars, transit buses and trains.

Parra stressed that the 'proportional registration' alternative offered by the district is pretty much unworkable because it would be too difficult for operators with large fleets to track the number of times each coach crosses into the district. 'That would be easy for buses that run regular routes, but not for motorcoaches because they go all over the place,' he noted.

While the fees could bring the district new dollars, they also could backfire, according to Parra, who suggested they could make or break some trips and possibly lead to tour groups bypassing the area for other popular charter destinations.

'This is really going to discourage tourists,' he said. 'The city is making an effort to attract tourists and this is sort of negating those efforts.'

He pointed out that a trip fee charged by Atlantic City was partially to blame for charter traffic in the city dropping from 1,100 buses a day to about 700.

Pantuso agreed that the fees could be a blow to the districts tourism promotion campaign and cost it valuable tourism dollars. 'They have the convention and visitors people trying to bring in tourists and the transportation department trying to grab extra dollars from the same people who are being encouraged to go there,' he said.

The possible impact the fees could have on tourism in the district has caught the eye of at least one councilmember, Kwame R. Brown, an at-large Democrat who chairs the councils economic development committee, which is responsible for the oversight of the citys Convention and Tourism Corporation.

Brown, his communications director, LaToya Foye, said, was not aware of the fees until recently. 'And now that he knows about it, he plans to look into it, although he has not made up his mind about it one way or the other, Foye added.

Parra also noted that the fees will cut into the profit margin of many motorcoach operators. He said coach companies will have to eat the $50 trip fees for district charters that they already have booked and for which advances have been paid. 'And you cant recoup those costs.'

While industry executives hope to convince the district to drop the plans short of going to court, there is precedent for taking legal action. In 1998, the district abandoned a similar fee after the ABA filed suit against it. 'We could do it again,' said Pantuso.