NEW WEST GUEST COLUMN
A Moment of Opportunity for Public Land Counties
New decisions about the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act will fund local roads and education, but could also affect employment and public land management, according to an economist specializing in land management.By Mark Haggerty, Guest Writer, 1-07-11
 |
|
 | |
| Photo by Flickr user jmcarver. | |
|
U.S. Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack just announced that this year’s “transition” payments to counties from the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (SRS) will again “contribute to rural communities becoming self-sustaining and prosperous.”
The Secretary stressed that these payments ($389 million) fund local roads and schools—important for communities still feeling the after-effects of the recession. They do much more.
In the West, federal spending is important, but equally so are federal public lands. How SRS payments are funded and distributed is a key factor in determining how public lands are managed, and the kinds of jobs available in rural communities.
SRS is about to expire and federal deficit concerns make continued funding uncertain. Over the past 100 years, Congress has reformed and expanded county payments, with each change reflecting new economics and changing public attitudes. The pending sunset of SRS provides a new opportunity for reform, and for a renewed commitment to counties.
Every county that has federal public lands within its borders receives a payment from the federal government as compensation for the non-taxable status of these public lands.
Originally, counties received 25 percent of all revenue generated by commercial activities on public lands, mainly timber harvests. After World War II, payments soared as logging increased to meet the demands of post-war growth and housing development.
By the 1980s and 1990s, peak payments had passed. Economic volatility and new attitudes about how to manage public lands contributed to reduced federal harvests and falling county payments.
Over the same period, the economic value of public lands expanded as telecommunications and cheap air travel made public-lands counties attractive places to live and work. The problem of declining county payments was that they were not linked to the emerging amenity value of public lands—recreation, and healthy forests and watersheds—but remained pegged only to commodity production.
In 2000, Congress passed SRS to provide stable (but declining) payments, and new funding for forest restoration to aid this economic transition in rural places. Restoration puts people to work today, and healthy forests will create jobs in the future as people—their knowledge, skills and innovation—are attracted by healthy public lands.
If Congress does not reauthorize SRS, it will be a step backwards for forest management and rural prosperity. Counties will again receive payments equal to 25 percent of commodity receipts. This outcome will not return timber harvests on federal lands to 1980s levels, but it will bring back the timber wars as counties push for maximum cuts to the exclusion of other land management goals.
Local services will also decline as commodity-based payments will be lower than current SRS payments—a second hit to self-sustaining communities as quality education and transportation services are necessary for success in the new economy.
This disconnect between the old payment mechanism (timber only) and a new one linked to the new economy (timber plus) must be bridged.
Headwaters Economics has assessed eight ideas for the reform of county payments, including some that link payments to the value of ecosystem services and economic need. A white paper explore the pros and cons of each idea in terms of whether they provide stable and predictable compensation to counties, create diverse job opportunities, and improve forest health. Interactive maps allow you to see exactly what each idea means for any county or state’s future payment.
Money will be tight in the next Congress, which will require creative thinking about which programs to fund and how to spend limited dollars. Reauthorizing and reforming SRS is perhaps the biggest opportunity Secretary Vilsack and Congress will have to ensure the goal of self-sustaining and prosperous rural communities becomes a reality.
Mark Haggerty is an economist at Headwaters Economics, an independent, nonprofit research group in Bozeman, Montana, dedicated to improving community development and land management decisions in the West.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
If federal lands were still used for their TANGIBLE, CONVERTIBLE WORTH, hundreds of small Western towns wouldn't be economic wastelands or cheesy tourist traps or Aspens -- or a combination of all three.
Sure, there would be vagaries in the markets, but in the long run, it would work far better than Haggerty's voodoo.
Maybe counties should get a 25 percent spiff commission for every dollar spent on wildland megafires?
But the glaring difference between a Boise and an Austin is that Austin has all this expansive land on which to build cheap housing. No frigging USFS or BLM land in Texas. Remember, Texas was a country before it was a state. No Napoleanic fire sales. No unclaimed public domain. The frigging Feds didn't own a piece of Texas, and when they wanted a piece of it, they had to buy it. Not from Texas, but from a private entity, which could be a person or a corporation. Unfettered by a preponderance of public land that does little but stand around like the Vegas show girl, eye candy, but of no importance to the real scheme of things economic. You can't build a high tech on land locked up, water not available, air not available.
There is not going to be an economic rebound near vast tracts of public land. There is no compelling reason to locate a business in a place that cannot support a county court, a school house, a paved road, without being on the Federal dole with the Rural Secure Schools bullshit deal. County welfare disguised as PILT payments. Payment in lieu of taxes. So what, really, is the difference? The payments are made from tax revenue on incomes. There is a fortune tied up in the Land, Water, Conservation Fund, a royalty paid to the Feds for now not permitted off shore drilling permit sales. The money is used almost exclusively by NGOs of favor who deal in buying private land to sell exclusively to the Feds. And get a 30% or more vigorish payment from the Feds for their effort. The anointed middle middle men, who use the profits to lobby Congress and litigate against Federal Land managers, all paid for by the left in Congress by the back door. A Barney Frank kind of deal, when you think about it. Fannie and Freddie buying votes for the left. The Land, Water Conservation Fund buying votes for the left. Maybe that will end with the new sheriff with the big gavel. Conk!! And tipped 'er over, he did...
Austin, Texas is siting all these big high tech plants because they are not confined and constricted by having Public Lands surrounding the paucity of private land, created in amounts that would serve as townships almost two centuries ago. Anachronisms. And piss poor ones, at that. All that land that can be bought, can be served with infrastructure, all to site plants that will employ people. And the mayor of Austin says he is recruiting companies in places like California because Texas has no income tax on individuals and companies. And a thriving cultural diversity helped by cheap and available housing. No San Francisco ghetto three stories high and 16 feet wide by 60 feet long for a million bucks or more. No half million dollar condos for waitperson help. The Mayor's sales pitch is we have land, we have affordable housing, we have a nice warm climate, and we have a mega university, and we have the arts available for all. And, we want you. We will do what it takes to have you here. And you can't do that surrounded by Federal land, all locked down like a reform school for hippies. Or is that what is it, really? If you couldn't get a job at the post office, you went to work for the Forest Service.