Western Politics
AP Investigation: Political Clout Takes Over Timber Payment Decisions
An important and controversial investigation by the Associated Press.
By Courtney Lowery, 12-07-09
Matthew Daly and Shannon Dininny of the Associated Press have a big story out today that uncovers a “vast entitlement” in the program most often referred to as county timber payments or as it was formerly know, the Secure Rural Schools and Self Determination Act.
The law was originally passed in 2000 as a way to help rural communities that were seeing dramatic drops in revenue from logging on federal lands, namely rural schools that heavily relied on that income. The act came after concern for in the 1990s for the spotted owl and other endangered species spurred a reduction in timber harvests. Total, the legislation has allocated more than $3 billion to counties. And, as the AP reports, Oregon, California, Washington, Idaho and Montana got the majority of that money—80 percent. Oregon alone got $2 billion.
But, as Daly and Dininny discovered:
“A four-year renewal of the law, passed last year, authorizes an additional $1.6 billion for the program through 2011 and shifts substantial sums to states where the spotted owl never flew. While money initially was based on historic logging levels, now any state with federal forests - even those with no history of logging - is eligible for millions in Forest Service dollars. Doling out all that taxpayer money is based less on logging losses than on the powerful reality of political clout.”
In fact, Montana will double its payments in the new authorization, getting $111 million over four years. The AP investigation also shows that New Mexico will see an increase of 692 percent in funding, Utah, 636 percent, Alaska, 528 percent, Kentucky, 303 percent, Tennessee, 188 percent, Colorado, 184 percent.
Meanwhile, Daly and Dininny report:
“Under the renewal, included as a sweetener in the $700 billion financial bailout program, the five Western states saw their share of the timber money drop to about 62 percent in the first year, with further drops scheduled in each of the next three years.
The reason? Politics.”
It’s an extremely important investigation about a complicated and in the West, controversial subject and Daly and Dininny do an excellent job of laying it all out. Read the whole thing here.
[End of article]At least "we" are getting some of the tax payers money instead of the Czars, Bogus Climate Change, CEO's, Unions, Parties etc. need I go on. The taxpayer so far has gotten very little, such as jobs by opening up our natural resources for development, so I would say this was a good thing as it is going for our kid's education.
Comment By Dave Skinner, 12-07-09Story falls way short. They blame the mess on the decline of the industry, NOT the litigation-driven collapse of the federal program. Never mind how the program is seen strictly as pork by those from non-forested districts that never had forestry as an economic driver, and have no clue whatsoever of the economic devastation caused by the federal shut down. Leave it to Harry to chiz Nevada in for a share, which tells you something about his leadership...and a Congress that would allow him to "lead."
Vote smarter, folks. But with stories like AP's dumbing down the public, I'm not hopeful.
Deep in the heart of former Federal timber country, sits Oakridge, Oregon. There used to be two ranger districts selling 175 million board feet of timber a year. A big Pope and Talbot sawmill. Gypo logging and road building outfits. Today the town is a shell of closed store fronts and economic hard times entering a third decade of broken Federal promises and Environmental Lobby lies about "clean" business, Eco-tourism, and alternative forest products. This is the stump rot belt. Now becoming the conflagration hub, with this summer's Tumblebug fire the third largest ever on the Willamette Natl Forest. The only tangible result of the fire is that now the USFS has drawn a vast line of "no entry" signs around the burn, and over 200,000 acres are now denied public access. In lieu of doing squat, the Congress is making "in lieu" payments. And has greatly expanded the political areas benefitted by Congressional grace and pork.
But in Oakridge, the local laundromat, the public place poor could pound quarters into machines to have clean clothes, failed after a little more than a year, and its bank creditor closed it down and auctioned off the machinery before anyone could make an attempt to make another go of it. Banks get money to survive, but people don't. That is the ObamaNation treatment of credit. Now the poor who don't have access to in house washing machines and driers have no place within 40 miles to clean their laundry. Ever clever, and adaptable, people are now making use of donated clothes for the poor. You wear them until you can't stand them, and then discard them and wear your next wardrobe of clean, used clothing. Man, this is right out of the African bush, and reality right here in 'America.
You know salvage of this summer's burned timber will not take place, because the Equal Access to Justice Act has paid so many attorneys to so well for so long that the lawsuits and appeals sure to be filed on any proposed timber sale will make sure the timber is no longer suitable for lumber long before the appeals run out. I found it amusing that Harvard Law School's endowment has taken such a hit that they no longer will pay third year law students' tuition if the student agrees to work for an NGO or for a non-profit legal aid or environmental law firm for five years after law school. That made me smile this morning. I wonder if any of them don't have access to affordable laundry options. "Your Honor, may it please the Court that my colleague before the Bar, the Honorable Legal Aid Attorney Blxfxt, might have a recess in order that he might find some clean shorts and a shower, as his smelling like butt is making for some remarkable discomfort on this side of the Courtroom."
Only in Oakridge, the problem is real, and pathetic in a way that greatly disturbs me, with the likes of Nevada Democrat Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid siphoning off billions to distribute as political favors while real human beings are being systematically degraded by the very same Government he so proudly says he serves.
And, in light of the hundreds of billions that sublimated out of the Treasury to "save" the world's economic underpinnings, perhaps the "in lieu" payments to real past timber dependent counties are too little and should be increased. 30 million aliens on food stamps have entitlements. Maybe those counties should also have entitlements.
Entitlements, pork, call it what you will. Welfare checks always made the lumber business attractive and profitable. With powerful friends in the construction, banking, and real estate industries, the politics was hard to beat. It still is, even though the lot of them are nearly belly-up. There's stimulus money, rural development money, PILT money, local land tax breaks, and god knows what else, and it's never enough. We can print money endlessly, and write IOUs to the Chinese and it will never be enough for these "free-market," rugged individualist conservatives.
Comment By bearbait, 12-07-09Steve Kelly: would you name a welfare check paid to a timber or lumber company? I bought timber for a sawmill. Stood in auction rooms and bid millions of dollars for timber, and the government never cut us a check. But we cut them some doozies. You had to have insurance and bonding. You had to build the roads with your money, on their property, to their standards, and now you don't get paid for building the road. Instead, structure your bid to include the cost of required road building, maintenance, and rock wear replacement. Ever pay for rock wear when you drive to the trailhead? Maybe there ought to be a rock wear fee for use of public roads.
We paid for the timber, and we paid "deposits" to cover future thinning of the timber. Congress and the USFS pissed that money away long ago, and now we have mega fires because there is too much fuel, and too many trees. THE MONEY TO THIN THE REGROWTH ON USFS CLEAR CUTS WAS COLLECTED IN A "TRUST FUND" , AS WAS THE MONEY FOR SLASH DISPOSAL AND REGENERATION, AND SILVICULTURAL CARE. That the money is no longer there is the taxpayers' "welfare check", paid by the timber industry, as the money was collected and used elsewhere. Not the timber or lumber industries fault or responsibility. Maybe it all went to pay the NGO lawyers their $500 an hour they now routinely get by appealing and litigating every action the USFS or BLM takes. The irony of that is appalling. But those bills run over a $Billion dollars a year, none of which builds a foot of trail, fights an acre of fire, repairs one flood damaged bridge.
So, Mr. Kelly, please name the "welfare check" the timber industry got from the Feds. What was their subsidy? And then tell us how much better off we are today than thirty years ago in this deal. Tell us how public policy has IMPROVED the lot of rural economies in the West. Name the instances of economic growth and improved community economic health that has come from the surrounding public lands, absent any "welfare check" from the Feds. How has socialism, public control of resources, improved the communities formerly supported by timber use.