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Bush
administration seeks sale of Forest Service lands
By EVE BYRON - IR Staff Writer - 02/11/06
The federal government on
Friday unveiled the list of U.S. Forest Service lands that may be put on the
auction block, acknowledging that this might be the largest public land sale in
decades.
The list of 2,930 parcels in 34
states comprises 309,121 acres, including 85,000 acres in California, 25,000
acres in Idaho and 21,000 acres in Colorado, ranging in size from less than an
acre to about 900 acres in Virginia.
In Montana, about 13,900 acres
may be offered for sale, including six tracts totaling 336 acres in the Helena
National Forest.
Even though the list totals
309,121 acres, the Forest Service only plans on selling from 150,000 to 200,000
acres.
Still, Undersecretary of
Agriculture Mark Rey said during a conference call on Friday, this would amount
to the largest public land sale in decades.
But he quickly added that the
Forest Service continues to add parcels to its holdings, mainly by buying
private lands that are surrounded by public property, and has grown from 191
million to 193 million acres in recent years.
“So it’s true that
this is substantially larger than some of our previous proposals for federal
land conveyances … but with the active land acquisition program, which has
been in existence for 50 years, we’re continuing to acquire
environmentally sensitive lands,” Rey said.
The proposed land sale is part
of President Bush’s 2007 budget, and would raise about $800 million during
the next five years to help pay rural school and road costs in 41 states. Since
1908, counties’ school and road costs have been aided by 25 percent of
revenues raised through timber sales and grazing fees.
But as timber harvests declined,
so did the sales revenues going to counties.
In 2000, the Secure Rural
Schools Act created a formula to try to stabilize the payments for 2001-06. It
guaranteed payments, along with a certain amount from timber receipts.
Locally last year, Lewis and
Clark County received $446,500 from the national forests; Broadwater got
$85,000; and Jefferson County took in $190,700, according to Jerry Meyer,
public information officer for the Helena National Forest.
But the Act expires in the fall of 2006, and the federal
government wants to wean counties from the guaranteed payments and instead
revert mainly to payments from the timber receipts, according to Rey. He
anticipates that timber sales are on the upswing.
“Under the first year, counties would get about the
same amount under the 2000 legislation. That would start to reduce each
successive year,” Rey said. “After five years, we will be …
assuming that most counties had made that transition and go back to the receipt
sharing formula.”
He expects this will end with counties receiving about half
of what they have in the past from the Forest Service.
“This will give counties greater predictability,”
he said.
That loss in federal money could be offset in counties by
additional revenues once the public parcels are put on the tax rolls, he added.
The Bureau of Land Management also is working on selling off
federal lands to raise about $182 million during the next five years.
The proposal upsets Lewis and Clark County Commissioner Ed
Tinsley, who said the whole notion “reeks of a privatization attempt”
by the Bush Administration.
“These lands are part of our economy. They are critical
to hunters, anglers and the timber industry. When they are sold off,
they’re gone forever,” Tinsley said. “For the most part, these
are interconnected ecosystems and once you put them in private hands,
there’s not a lot the government can do to protect them.
“And they’re doing this in the name of helping
school children. They are spending billions helping school children in Iraq n
what about spending some of that money here?”
Sen. Max Baucus also is opposed to selling off public lands.
“As Montanans, we value our public lands —
they’re an important part of our recreational heritage,” Baucus said.
“… We hunt, we fish, we hike, we take our kids camping. I’ve
co-sponsored legislation (S.267) along with Sens. Craig and Wyden that would
reauthorize and fully fund the Secure Rural Schools program without selling off
our public lands.”
Sen. Conrad Burns hadn’t had an opportunity to look at
the proposal in depth, but was looking forward to reviewing the
administration’s proposal and it’s impact on Montana.
Environmental groups also object to the proposal, saying
that the long-term loss of public lands will offset any short-term gains.
“We just think the proposal makes no sense from any
perspective — not for the rural schools or county roads, or in terms of
federal public lands belonging to all citizens,” said Matthew Koehler with
the Native Forest Council. “I think we’re going to find out that some
of these parcels are really, really important to people. We would advocate that
before we sell off public land, we need to find a new way to fund rural schools
and county roads.”
After public comments are received, the parcels to be sold
will be put up for public auction, Rey said. Before that happens, Congress must
approve the proposal, which was announced Monday as part of the Bush
Administration’s 2007 budget.
Rey said the federal government plans to listen to the
public about what lands are important, noting that the ones identified for
possible sale on the list are isolated, expensive to manage and no longer
meeting national forest system needs.
“In some cases, they became part of the Forest Service
more as an accident of history than anything else,” Rey said. “We
appreciate that over the last two decades, conveying federal land out of
federal ownership is a sensitive issue. We want to give everyone a chance to
look at each and every tract under consideration. … This has to be
transparent, with the public having the opportunity to reflect and comment on
it and the funds generated have to go to broadly supported public
purposes.”
Reporter Eve
Byron can be reached at 447-4076 or by e-mail at
eve.byron@helenair.com
www.helenaIR.com
Independent Record
Copyright © Helena Independent Record; a division of
Lee Enterprises Copyright © 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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