The Associated PressWASHINGTON -- With crucial federal support for rural counties set to expire Sept. 30, a House subcommittee on Thursday examined possible solutions for an almost impossible question -- how to prop up local governments surrounded by federal forests without adding to the nation's swollen deficit.
Republicans on the House Resources Subcommittee for Forests had a ready answer: Soften environmental protections and dramatically increase the amount of timber harvested from federal forests.
The administration has set aside $328 million for the county payments program for the next fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1. But a senior official with the Forest Service told lawmakers that the agency has no specific proposal for how the program would be financed. Under current budget rules, the money must come from new sources of revenue or by cutting an equal amount from some other federal program.
"The answer to the question about funding," Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska., said, "would be to harvest more trees. That's the answer."
But Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., whose massive and rural district relies on federal county payments to finance public education and other critical local services, said he is open to other ideas along with boosting production of timber from federal lands that dominate the rural communities.
"I think we can all agree that the status quo doesn't work and won't work going forward," Walden told the subcommittee during a hearing that marked the beginning of what promises to be an arduous effort to renew the legislation.
"Our communities don't even want the status quo," he said. "They don't want the handout that has made them dependent on the federal government. They want jobs. They want healthy forests. They are tired of the catastrophic fire and the bug infestation. They are sick of the budgeting uncertainty that comes with not knowing if Uncle Sam will pay his fair share."
One idea being considered is to put certain federal lands in trust status. Some of the lands would be used to raise revenue that would go to local communities while other lands would be more highly protected as wilderness sites. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., formulated the idea and is working with Walden as well as others in the delegation and Gov. John Kitzhaber to refine the idea.
"I am trying to find some way through the forest wars," DeFazio said in an interview.
DeFazio's proposal focuses on the so-called O&C lands in Oregon, 2.4 million acres of federally-owned forest lands in 18 western counties that are designed to support local communities.
One idea DeFazio is pursuing is setting aside some of the O&C lands for seperate uses. One would be enrolled as a conservation trust and would be protected. It still could generate revenue, however, by selling carbon credits from the old growth trees inside the boundary.
Another would be a timber trust, open to more active management and logging with leases and upfront payments to bring revenue and create jobs. The idea, DeFazio said, would be to create financially self-sustaining units that would funnel dollars to local communities and, in the best case, even return money to the federal Treasury.
"Trusts also work. Nationwide, land trusts annually return billions to beneficiaries from resources on states land," Walden said, noting that Washington state is successfully using the tool.
According to Walden, 2.9 million acres managed in Washington state produced gross revenues of nearly $300 million in 2005.
"On a nationwide basis, trusts could help keep the school doors open, keep the roads in good repair, and keep the sheriff's deputies on patrol while families sleep at night," he said.
The county payments programs was created in 2000 to reimburse counties for lost income from the sale of timber on federal lands. The funding is critical because in most of the counties, the federal government owns more than 50 percent of the land, pinching the tax base and in some cases limiting the ability of local officials develop their local economy.
The payments were also acknowledgement that the federal government should help local governments after logging on federal land was reduced. Counties receive 25 percent of the revenue from timber sales but when logging plummeted, so did revenue. By law, the money was to be used to finance public education. In 2008, $250 million poured into 33 Oregon counties from the program.
In an interview after the hearing, Walden said is not convinced the trust approach is best. What is certain, he said, is that the current system of giving federal funds directly to local communities is no longer tolerable in fiscal or political terms.
"There are a number of options we're looking at. That is certainly one where there's a model of success in the states. Managing public lands in healthy and active ways have benefited the citizens of those states for their schools, principally.
"I'm not going to get into detail on the rest because we don't have it all worked out. I'm just trying to get people to think outside the box because what we have been doing is neither working well for the communities nor sustainable for the taxpayers," he said.
No matter what solution is picked, getting it through Congress is no guarantee. Since 2000 the program has been renewed three times, which each becoming a near-death experience. In 2008, a compromised appeared to be reached only to have it stripped from must-pass legislation in the waning days of the Congress.
With local communities preparing -- or in some cases actually -- laying off police and teacher, closing libraries and releasing inmates from local jails, Congress finally attached language to renew county payments to the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program to save the crashing financial sector. That 2008 law extended county payments until Sept. 30 of this year.
Since then the economy has only gotten worse and political pressure has intensified to cut federal spending and shrink the deficit.
Walden said he has no doubt about the difficulty facing him and other supporters this time.
"I think it will be pretty difficult as it has been in each time we've enacted or reauthorized Secure Rural Schools," he said, using the official name of the program.
"The last authorization took place on TARP. This is not easy to accomplish even in the best of times. The message really, here, is it's time to do it differently so we get certainty for the long run and get people back to work in these forested communities," he said.
-- Charles Pope
Greg Walden champions long-term solutions for county payments
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