U.S. Lost $15 Million Selling Public Timber
11/21/97
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Headline: U.S. Lost $15 Million Selling Public Timber
Source: The Washington Post
Date: 11/21/97
Author: Joby Warrick, Washington Post Staff Writer
Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company
U.S. Lost $15 Million Selling Public Timber
Officials Point to `Greener' Logging Practices
The business of selling timber from America's
national forests cost taxpayers about $15
million last year, according to a U.S. Forest
Service memorandum that reflects the agency's
first acknowledgment of a net loss from timber
sales.
The admission of revenue loss is likely to
intensify the debate over logging in public
lands, providing fresh ammunition for budget
hawks and environmentalists who oppose
commercial logging in the nation's 155 national
forests.
Agency officials say the income drop is partly
due to a shift to "greener" policies that favor
conservation over profits.
The memo, obtained by The Washington Post, is a
preliminary accounting of timber harvest
expenditures and receipts that is due to be
made public in an official report next month.
The document shows an 11 percent drop in
revenues from the previous year, continuing a
long, steady slide that the agency attributes
to weak markets as well as major changes in
policy. The size of the timber harvest -- 3.7
billion board feet -- was down about 5 percent
in the same period.
The drop in income resulted in a net revenue
loss of $14.7 million, which the report
described as the first such loss since the
government implemented its current accounting
system in 1989.
Other government agencies and numerous
environmental groups have long claimed that the
government's timber program is a money-loser
for taxpayers. A 1995 report by the General
Accounting Office showed accumulative losses to
the Treasury of nearly $1 billion from 1992 to
1994. The Forest Service, however, has
consistently shown a profit, in part because of
accounting procedures that do not reflect
revenue payments to states and other costs.
The government's earnings from commercial
logging have fallen steadily since the late
1980s, when the annual timber harvest from
national forests topped 12 billion board feet,
or more than triple last year's total.
While not commenting specifically on the
contents of the memo, Forest Service Chief
Michael P. Dombeck said the agency's smaller
earnings reflect "important changes in the way
we administer our timber program." One example,
he said, was the agency's reduction in the
practice of clear-cutting, which has fallen by
80 percent since 1988. Clear-cutting involves
the leveling of all trees in an area, a
practice that environmentalists say is
devastating to wildlife and can pollute
streams.
"More and more, we are finding ways to use our
timber program to make investments in the
land," Dombeck said. "These investments may not
always pay dividends at the end of the fiscal
year, but they do result in healthier lands and
waters for future generations."
The Forest Service memo also attributes the
latest declines to lower prices for lumber and
an increase in so-called "salvage" logging --
the cutting of dead and diseased trees as a
means of improving overall forest health.
Environmental groups and many pro-environment
politicians have generally supported recent
Forest Service initiatives that stress forest
stewardship over sales. But some seized on the
latest numbers to renew calls for a ban on
commercial logging in national forests, arguing
that the current system is essentially a
government subsidy for logging companies.
"The U.S. government is the only property owner
I know of that, in effect, pays private
companies to despoil or deplete its own
resources," said Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa).
But Mark Rey, majority staff member for the
Senate Energy and Natural Resources
subcommittee on forests, said the Forest
Service's reported losses underscore the need
for streamlining the government's regulations.
While private landowners can reap tidy profits
from selling timber rights, the government must
bear the cost of intensive environmental
reviews as well as administrative and legal
appeals that can delay harvesting for months or
even years, he said.
"These numbers do not make a commentary on
whether the federal government should be
selling timber," Rey said, "but rather they
make a commentary on the efficiency with which
the United States sells timber."