Bush calls for selling acres to pay for timber aid

Bush administration again tries to sell off hundreds of thousands of acres of America's public lands, endangering support for popular county payments program.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration again proposed selling off hundreds of thousands of acres of forestland to help continue a program that is vital to Oregon county and school budgets.

In his budget released Monday, President Bush proposed raising as much as $800 million by selling nearly 275,000 acres of Forest Service land deemed "isolated or inefficient to manage."

About $1 million of that would come from Oregon, where the administration is proposing the sale of about 100 parcels, totaling more than 7,500 acres.

Unlike last year's proposal, only half of the total proceeds -- $400 million -- would go to the county payments program over four years starting in October. The remaining $400 million would pay for acquisition of land for the forest system, conservation education and other improvements in the states where the Forest Service sells land.

Still the proposal probably will face heavy opposition from members of Congress and environmentalists.

"It's a little like selling the tires off your car to pay for gas," said Steve Pedery, conservation director at Oregon Wild, formerly the Oregon Natural Resources Council. "The public land system of the United States is valuable for many different reasons."

Safety net expires

The 2000 Secure Rural Schools and Community Act created a safety net for a program that used to pay counties for logging on federal land. Congress created the law to compensate counties despite declining timber revenues. It ties payments to past logging levels, and the U.S. Treasury provides whatever money does not come in from timber receipts.

The act expired in September, forcing rural counties to plan massive cuts. In Oregon, the nation's biggest lumber producer, 33 of the state's 36 counties received more than $220 million for general funds, roads and schools last year, according to the Association of Oregon Counties.

The U.S. Treasury pays from $400 million to $430 million a year to fill the gap between past logging levels and current timber receipts. By adding $400 million over four years, the proposal would cover slightly less than half of the fully funded county payments, once timber receipts are included.

"It's minimally helpful," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. "It's sort of a halfhearted attempt at half the money we need."

Restoring the money has been a priority for both Democrats and Republicans of the Oregon congressional delegation. Gov. Ted Kulongoski is also concerned about losing the money and is headed to Washington later this month to lobby for keeping the program. Rural schools and counties say they'll take any money the government makes available.

"We really appreciate the administration including this funding mechanism in the budget proposal," said Bob Douglas, president of the National Forest Counties and Schools Coalition. "We are not ruling out any potential funding source that the Congress would want to consider."

Last year, the plan hit bipartisan opposition in the Republican-controlled Senate.

"The Republican president had Republican senators dancing on his head," DeFazio said. "The Democratic senators didn't even have time to chime in and say they didn't like it."

Responding to critics

Mark Rey, the agriculture undersecretary who oversees forest policy, said the administration modified this year's proposal to address the criticism.

Under the plan, the government would spend the $400 million on conservation efforts in the states where land is sold, proportional to the amount of land sold.

Additionally, Rey said, the proposal would remove about 27,000 acres of land that people in public comments said is necessary and should not be sold. And it also would create a committee of conservation and educational experts who would have the final say over proposed land sales.

Rey noted that with budget rules reinstituted by the Democratic congressional leadership, any new spending must be offset.

"We're now a year later and no other alternative proposal emerged that the Congress embraced," Rey said. "There is a broadly shared desire to reauthorize Secure Rural Schools, and unless somebody comes up with a better idea for how to pay for it, then that broadly shared desire can't be realized."

This budget covers the 2008 fiscal year, beginning in October. Counties and schools face a more immediate threat in light of the expiration of the act. They are pushing for a one-year extension of the program to fund it through September.

The administration had agreed to a one-year extension at full funding levels for the 2007 fiscal year, on the condition that Congress agree on a budget offset.

According to the National Forest Counties and Schools Coalition, between 12,000 and 16,000 county employees and teachers in 800 counties face potential layoffs this spring.

"Very frankly," Douglas said, "what's more important to us at this point in time is that Congress look seriously at a bipartisan solution to extend Secure Rural Schools for one year right now, because we are in a situation where we're truly facing a catastrophic emergency."