DeFazio expects timber payment phaseout

Congress is likely to phase out payments offsetting lost timber revenue in Oregon counties, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio said Friday. On another topic, DeFazio told The Associated Press in an interview that West Coast commercial salmon fishermen are facing a financial disaster that he compared to the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Congress is likely to phase out payments offsetting lost timber revenue in Oregon counties, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio said Friday.

On another topic, DeFazio told The Associated Press in an interview that West Coast commercial salmon fishermen are facing a financial disaster that he compared to the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

The Oregon Democrat said relief in both cases was slow in arriving.

As a result, on the West Coast, some fishermen have already lost their boats, their means of livelihood, he said.

Last month, Congress approved $425 million for a one-year extension of payments to rural counties hurt by federal logging cutbacks. A fellow Oregon Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden, had supported a Senate plan to extend the program through 2011.

But DeFazio said the $5 billion Senate plan would have phased out the existing payment progam to counties and schools and created a new program at twice the cost. The Senate plan would have benefited other Western states that are less dependent on timber revenue, partly in exchange for Republican backing, DeFazio said.

The tradeoff was not worth it, DeFazio said, adding "there are a few senators who want to rip off the Treasury for their states and establish a new program that far exceeds ours for counties that haven't been hurt by a change in federal policy" to restrict logging.

"I'm willing to concede at this point that Sen. Wyden's proposal to phase it out is probably the way we're going to have to go," DeFazio said. "Until he proposed that, I wasn't willing to go there. But I think now that's become generally accepted."

Commercial fishermen, meanwhile, suffered losses last year estimated at about $16 million when the federal government cut back the salmon harvest about 90 percent to protect chinook returning to the Klamath River in Northern California. The cutbacks affected fishermen from Cape Falcon on the northern Oregon coast to Point Sur near Monterey, Calif.

DeFazio said the congressional delegation had to resort to cornering Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez outside a hearing to convince the Bush administration to declare a disaster -- and then the administration was slow to fund relief.

It took a shift to a Democratic majority in the House to get money for fishermen approved, with the first of about $60 million in federal relief checks expected to go out in about six weeks, DeFazio said.

"In terms of the responsiveness of the administration and the willingness to help on a timely basis, for fishing families it would be as much of a disaster as the loss of a home and/or livelihood for people hit by Katrina," DeFazio said.

Much of the problem could be fixed, he said, by restoring the health of the Klamath River Basin, including dam removal, investment in public land cleanup and possibly increasing the amount of cold water from the Trinity River in Northern California flowing into the Klamath, rather than diverting it south to the Sacramento Valley in California.

On other topics, DeFazio -- who chairs a transportation subcommittee -- said the nation needs a comprehensive transportation plan. The last major plan was the interstate highway system fostered by the Eisenhower administration in the late 1950s.

He urged development of alternative energy, including wind power, technology to capture wave energy from the ocean along the Oregon coast, and so-called pyrolytic gasification of biomass -- an extremely efficient way of burning forest or crop waste.

DeFazio said such development could also lead to other benefits, such as the possibility of creating tar from pyrolytic burners that could be used to make asphalt, which is increasingly in short supply because of high oil prices and rising demand, especially in China.

"If we can be squeezing some asphalt stuff out of dead trees, that would be good," DeFazio said.

He praised Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski for his plan to expand renewable energy sources to provide at least 25 percent of the state's power by 2025.

"We're really in an incredibly unique place here with the wave energy, the wind energy, the potential for biomass, hydroelectric -- to be a very, very cost-effective world leader on renewables," DeFazio said.

As for his political plans, DeFazio did not rule out a run for governor in 2010 when Kulongoski's second term ends.

DeFazio announced in April he would not challenge Republican Sen. Gordon Smith next year, despite polls he said indicated he was the strongest potential Democratic candidate.