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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

U.S. Taxpayers Lose Money on Logging on National Forests

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

2/20/97

OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE

For the first time, environmentalist's accusations that logging on

U.S. National Forests actually costs taxpayer money has been formally

accepted by a Presidential administration. A recent White House

report concludes that "the Forest Service spent $234 million more than

it made logging U.S. national forests in 1995." U.S. land management

policies, particularly in the West, are based upon promoting resource

extraction at any cost. It is ludicrous that public U.S. forest

ecosystems continue to be fragmented and diminished through taxpayer

funded roading, while money is actually being lost on these supposedly

commercial ventures. Clearly reforms must be made to antiquated,

unsustainable resource use patterns throughout the industrialized

world.

g.b.

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Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 13:01:39 -0800

From: Bay Area Action <baaction@igc.apc.org>

Subject: Logging Costs Taxpayers

Report: Taxpayers lose money on U.S. logging

BY SCOTT SONNER

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Forest Service spent $234 million more than it made

logging U.S. national forests in 1995, the White House Council of

Economic Advisers says in its annual report.

The logging subsidies identified in the report mark the first time an

administration formally has accepted environmentalists' claims that

Forest Service accounting practices hide overall logging costs to

taxpayers.

The Forest Service reported in its own annual report earlier this year

that its commercial logging operations turned a $59 million profit for

the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 1995.

The White House report, however, concluded that during the same

period, the service collected $616 million in timber receipts but

spent more than $850 million on timber management, reforestation,

logging roads, payments to states and other costs.

"Generally, U.S. Forest Service subsidizes timber extraction from

public lands by collecting less in timber sale revenues than it spends

on timber program costs," said the White House report, which was sent

to Congress earlier this month.

"Current policies toward natural resource use are mainly rooted in

past legislation intended to stimulate the economies of the West and

encourage settlement of the region," the Council of Economic Advisers

said. "These policies facilitate the development and exploitation of

natural resources."

The Forest Service traditionally has excluded from its bottom line

some road-building costs as well as the 25 percent share of timber

revenue it is required to give to states.

Forest Service officials had no immediate response on Tuesday.

The council said logging expenditures consistently have exceeded

receipts in seven of nine Forest Service regions -- all but the

Southern and Eastern regions covering roughly the eastern half of the

country.

Expenses outpaced logging revenue by a 3-to-1 ratio the past decade in

three agency regions covering most of the Rocky Mountains -- Colorado,

Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Idaho and Nevada.

The report said recreational use of federal public lands also is

heavily subsidized. The National Park Service spends about $250

million annually to provide visitor services, while bringing in only

$80 million in user fees.

The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands bring in much

less money in recreation fees and provide those services at well below

costs, the council said, providing no details.

The Wilderness Society conservation group projected in a report

earlier this month that logging of national forests cost federal

taxpayers $398 million more than the timber sales returned to the

Treasury in 1995.

The society said the Forest Service failed to account for $200 million

in road construction costs and $257 million in payments to counties.

It said 95 of the 109 national forests failed to return as much money

as the logging cost.

"This is the first time there has been a recognition of the

significant subsidies in the timber program," Carolyn Alkire, an

economist for the society, said about the White House report.

"It's astounding. It's what we've been saying all along."

Industry officials objected to the apparent division between White

House and Forest Service thinking on the matter.

"It is always interesting when an administration doesn't listen to the

U.S. Forest Service. If the professional foresters are not making the

decisions, who is?" said M.J. Jamison, spokeswoman for the American

Forest & Paper Association.

"It is a trend that has never happened since the U.S. Forest Service

has been around. They are changing the rules," she said.

Frank Gladics, vice president of the Independent Forest Products

Association in Portland, Ore., said Tuesday the payments to the

counties should not be counted against the logging profits. He said

that is a "revenue shift" that Congress has ordered the Forest Service

to pay for.

The money is intended to compensate states and counties for the land

taken out of their land base, Gladics said.

"Here's the administration now siding with the environmentalists'

accounting system," he said. "They are saying to local counties that

they don't think the counties should get any money."

"It appears to me from afar that the federal government wants to

control these lands with no expense to them," he said.

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