In our June newsletter, we wrote about the failure of Congress to reauthorize The Secure Rural School and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, which provided help for rural communities affected by the reduction of timber harvests from federal lands. We have good news and bad news to report about this story.
Here is what we said then:
“Logging communities in the Pacific Northwest will be among those hit hardest by the recent decision in the U.S. House to vote down a bill to reauthorize a federal payment program for schools and other services in rural counties. Under the ‘timber payments program,’ rural counties received federal funding to offset lost revenue caused by conservation measures that sharply reduced logging on federal lands.”
The discontinuation of the payments has had serious consequences. Many of the affected counties have taken drastic steps in order to deal with the resulting budget shortfalls. Some counties fired sheriff's deputies and released prisoners; others closed libraries and slashed funds for road maintenance.
The good news is that Congress reauthorized the timber payments to rural counties program in October as part of a $700 billion bailout package and will provide more than $500 million for public schools, road maintenance, job creation, and stewardship programs in 2008. Over 700 counties in 41 states are eligible for payments.
The highest payments go to states in the West. Under the formula approved in October, Oregon will receive the largest timber payments—about $254 million in 2008—followed by California ($63 million), Washington ($43 million), Idaho ($43 million) and Montana ($32 million). These figures are roughly 90 percent of the 2006 payment amounts.
Congress has authorized funding for the new bill through 2011, though the payments will decrease over the four-year period: down to approximately 81 percent of 2006’s level in 2009, 73 percent in 2010 and just 50 percent in 2011.
The bad news is that the phase down may become a phase out. Many acknowledge that the ultimate goal of the Congress is to discontinue the payments. At the inception of the timber payments program, the government recognized that timber sales from federal lands were the main source of tax revenue for the counties. Once conservation measures restricted these sales, the timber payments program was enacted to help counties make the transition to alternative sources of revenue. Some argue that the counties will have had ample time to make this transition by 2012.
Another reason for a possible phase out has to do with the amount of the payments. Calculations for the payments are based on an average of the county’s three highest timber-producing years since 1986. Since the late 1980s saw some of the highest timber production ever in the West, many counties are making more money through the timber payments program than they were during all but peak production years for timber harvesting. Even Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski, who called the reauthorization of the bill “a lifeline,” said that no one should expect payments beyond 2011. "This is the end of it. What we have to do in these coming four years is develop a strategy" to replace the federal payments in county budgets.
Suz-Anne Kinney
Forest2Market: July 14, 2023
