Public Lands

White House Unveils Plan to Sell Off 200,000 Forest Service Acres

By Greg Lemon, 2-06-06

Tucked in at the end of a Monday morning news release, the Forest Service announced a White House plan to sell off about 200,000 acres of public land.

The news release focused mainly on how President Bush's proposed 2007 budget would fund the goals of his Healthy Forest Initiatives. The land sale would be used to help fund the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, said Dan Jiron, agency spokesman in Washington D.C.

The act was passed in 2000 to help rural communities and schools, which were getting less and less money from timber revenue off the National Forests, Jiron said. The act is set to sunset in a year, Jiron said, but Bush is asking Congress to extend it for five more years.

In Bush's 2007 budget the act is slated to cost about $800 million, he said. Selling 200,000 acres would only cover part of the bill.

A list of specific parcels to be sold should be available by Friday, Jiron said.

"None of the parcels are things that are in the wilderness or those kind of special lands," he said. "Essentially, these would be disconnected parcels."

In the entire scope of National Forest lands, 200,000 acres is a small portion, Jiron said. The National Forest system is composed of 193 million acres, Jiron said. And since 1990, the agency has actually acquired 2 million acres, he said.

The agency buys or trades for land in a variety of situations based on wildlife, habitat or managment values, Jiron said.

"What is being proposed here is a very, very small percentage of lands that are not easily managed."

Presumably the lands the agency will propose to sell will be surrounded by private lands, or in some other way undersirable.

Jiron couldn't say how much land would be for sale in each state. But whatever land the Forest Service proposes to sell, Congress will have to approve it when they address Bush's budget.

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