Many Resist As State E Federal Land Environmental Concerns Likely To Block Timber Industry’s Plan To Allow More Logging

Idaho is leading the nation in its push to take over management of federal land, but so far, there’s little sign that the nation is inclined to follow.

“I’m not sure the American public generally is ready,” said John Freemuth, a political science professor at Boise State University who has been studying the issue. “People back East feel that these are their lands, too.”

The state push to take over the land has its roots in North Idaho, where timber workers are frustrated that the U.S. Forest Service is allowing them to cut fewer and fewer trees. The frustration has given birth to an industry-sponsored plan that first made its way through the Idaho Legislature and now is being pursued by the state Land Board.

It calls for a “pilot project” to place Idaho’s most lucrative federal forests under the state’s less restrictive environmental laws.

“Our industry, frankly, is going out of business,” said timber lobbyist Joe Hinson. “About half a dozen mills now have been closed for lack of timber.”

In addition, the national mood is swinging toward turning responsibilities back to the states, and there’s growing debate over how national forest lands should be managed. An experiment with state management is “an idea worth considering,” Hinson said.

The Legislature agreed, passing a bill encouraging state involvement in managing some of Idaho’s federal land. This month, the Land Board launched an effort to figure out how Idaho can make it work.

But it can’t happen without an act of Congress. So far, two pieces of legislation have been proposed, but neither has gone anywhere. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, who co-sponsored both, is working on another proposal to allow certain parcels of land to be transferred to states for management, but Craig said last month he wants to keep current environmental laws in effect.

That, however, would defeat the purpose as far as Hinson is concerned. He says endless environmental appeals of Forest Service timber sales have to be stopped. Idaho avoided those on state lands by refusing to set up a formal appeal process and by requiring anyone appealing a timber sale in court to post a bond worth 10 percent of the sale value. That can be hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Just one goal

Idaho’s state lands constitutionally are required to be managed for just one goal: maximum long-term financial gain for the public school endowment fund.

Mike Medberry of the Idaho Conservation League said, “There’s much less public involvement … in the management of state lands, ironically, than there is in the management of the national forests.”

“Whenever the public or conservationists stop a timber sale, it’s because there’s a violation of law,” he said.

Craig has cited the work of Sally Fairfax, a University of California at Berkeley professor, in arguing for state involvement in managing federal lands. Fairfax recently co-published a ground-breaking book examining how states manage their trust lands.

The lands, granted upon statehood by the federal government, must be managed for financial gain to fund schools. Fairfax found that states have been innovative managers, have made money and sometimes have been better stewards of the land than the federal government has been.

In a telephone interview, Fairfax said she likes the idea of a state management experiment - but not using Idaho timberland.

“I think the Forest Service does a very good job managing high-value timber sites, and I think they do it under environmental restrictions that are important,” she said.

“Idaho wouldn’t be my first choice,” she said. “I can think of 20 better candidates.”

One reason for that is Idaho’s limits on public input. “I think there’s something to be said for not having to litigate every timber sale,” Fairfax said. “But I do think that the Idaho approach is rather Draconian.”

Plus, she said, “I don’t think anybody’s going to let a Legislature that just did away with the public trust (doctrine) take title to federally owned resources because the feds aren’t going to want it back after it’s been decimated.”

Idaho’s Legislature passed a law this year eliminating the ages-old public trust doctrine as an argument that can be used in lawsuits. The doctrine holds that public resources are held in trust for the public. Lawmakers were concerned that environmentalists had cited the doctrine in a lawsuit over a Priest Lake area timber sale.

An Idaho experiment

Hinson said he’d like to see Idaho’s experiment set up so that substantive environmental laws, such as rules for protecting streams, apply, but procedural laws don’t.

“If you take a look at environmental lawsuits, they are almost uniformly centered around some procedural violation of the law - the Forest Service failed to consider enough alternatives or they’ve failed to provide adequate public input.”

Last fall, Hinson put together a proposal for state management of federal lands and circulated it to state legislators and Land Board members.

Hinson proposed a pilot project in which the state would manage a chunk of productive federal forest land for at least 10 years. The state and feds would share the costs and the profits, while the counties would continue to receive the 25 percent share of gross timber revenues they get now from federal land.

If the state would cut the same amount of timber from the land that grows each year, it would turn a profit, Hinson calculated.

State Controller J.D. Williams said turning a profit is the key.

In a September analysis, Williams calculated that it would cost Idaho more than $90 million a year to take over management of all the federal land in the state and the state would have to hire thousands of new employees. “It would be a financial disaster for the state.”

Williams has warmed up to the idea since it has been posed as applying to only part - instead of all - of the federal land in the state and because the discussion has turned to managing the land differently.

“If it were structured in a different way, it could be a win-win for Idaho’s citizens and citizens of all 50 states,” he said. “In 1994, the federal government lost $250 million in the state of Idaho” in managing Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land.

“The impetus by the federal government is going to be budgets.”

Seeing dollar signs

Williams, the only Democrat on the Land Board, said it will take several years before the federal government comes around to the idea. As state controller, he sees dollar signs if the state can make it fly.

“The potential returns to public education are enough that we should look at this very carefully.”

The timber industry and its troubles are “a lot of the driving force” behind the move, Williams said. “There’s no question the industry has to change. Everyone else in the country is changing.”

“But when you know there’s a certain amount of timber grown every year that’s not being harvested for use and to provide jobs, it’s a shame, and I think the state can do better.”

Williams, who sits on a Land Board subcommittee that will help develop Idaho’s proposal for state management of federal lands, says it will work only if it’s a consensus position supported by all Idaho interests, including timber, conservationists, recreationists, the livestock industry, labor and more.

“If we cannot arrive at a consensus, Congress will never accept it,” he said.

A BSU survey in February asked Idahoans what they think of the idea. A majority said they would support a state takeover of federal lands only if all federal environmental laws still apply.

This is not the first time states have expressed interest in taking over federal lands. The idea has come up about every 20 years or so. But this time, some see differences.

Cal Professor Fairfax said that in some parts of the country, environmentalists, land users and industry are coming together to address local land-management concerns.

BSU Professor Freemuth said federal land-management agencies are in disarray and there’s no longer any firm national consensus about what national forest lands are for.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Idaho land ownership