Craig-Wyden bill crucial to region

It’s the difference between 24 miles of 2-inch overlay and simply filling potholes. It’s the difference between 50 miles of chip-sealed roads and plowing snow. Without bipartisan legislation sponsored by U.S. Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., counties with swaths of national forest could fall into a financial bind.

In a move that has raised eyebrows, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey refused to endorse the reauthorization of the legislation sponsored by Craig and Wyden more than five years ago. The bill set annual payments to counties with tracts of federal timber land, such as North Idaho’s Shoshone County, providing crucial funding for schools and roads. Also, it provided millions of dollars for a variety of natural resource conservation projects, from weed control to bridge replacements, from thinning forests to trail building.

If the Craig-Wyden bill isn’t reauthorized and transportation dollars are cut, Commissioner Mike Blankenship of Ferry County, Wash., told The Spokesman-Review: “The president’s budget right now could devastate my entire public works department.”

Although Bush’s plan to trim the federal deficit is laudable, he’d be foolish to prune this program, which has little effect on the federal budget but could devastate timber counties and towns. This isn’t a handout program. Shoshone County’s ability to collect property taxes is hamstrung by federal ownership of 75 percent of the land within its boundaries. More than 50 percent of the Idaho Panhandle is owned by the federal government. Counties can’t collect property tax on federal land to support schools and to build and maintain roads.

It’s crucial, therefore, that the U.S. government meets its obligation to the counties, particularly in tight economic times.

Consider. The White House is distancing itself from a $350 million annual program that serves as a lifeline to communities that once provided much of the timber for the housing industry. Compared with the $82 billion President Bush wants for the war effort, that’s a pittance. These communities aren’t responsible for the sharp decline in the timber harvest, which once subsidized their schools and roads. Environmental concerns and never-ending legal battles over logging are.

Prior to passage of the Secure Rural School and Community Self-Determination act, or the Craig-Wyden program, counties received 25 percent of the gross proceeds from timber cut on federal forests within their boundaries. The counties then split the money 70 percent to 30 percent between roads and schools. When timber cuts declined dramatically, Craig and Wyden proposed a stable appropriation for the counties, based on 80 percent to 85 percent of historic high timber payments. The remaining 15 percent to 20 percent was set aside for collaborative projects in forest management.

Fortunately, Craig and Wyden have cosponsors and widespread support for reauthorization of their bill.

The White House should look for places to cut the federal deficit to staunch the flow of red ink. But it shouldn’t shirk its responsibility to communities blessed – or, some might say, cursed – with an abundance of federal land.