Report Questions Recreation Revenue Estimates Congressman Points To Research That Says Logging’s Contribution Downplayed

The Clinton administration is underestimating federal logging’s contribution to the economy and exaggerating recreation dollars from national forests, Rep. Bob Smith, R-Ore., said Tuesday.

Smith, the new chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, urged Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck to reexamine the earlier projections and “set the record straight.”

Smith points to a new report by three forest economists who have done research for the timber industry in the past. The report takes issue with government projections that recreation, fisheries and wildlife will account for 84 percent of the $130.7 billion national forests contribute to the gross domestic product in 2000.

The government’s draft resource assessment, touted by Clinton administration officials in quarrels with Western Republicans last year, says timber will contribute only about 2.7 percent of that total.

“These estimates are grossly inaccurate and misleading,” wrote Wilbur Maki of the University of Minnesota, William McKillop of the University of California at Berkeley and Con Schallau, former staff economist for the timber industry’s American Forest and Paper Association.

The projection “grossly overstates the contribution to the nation’s GDP from recreation on the national forests and substantially underestimates the contribution of timber management,” they conclude.

A better estimate would be 53 percent from logging and 23 percent from recreation, fish and wildlife, they said. Mining would provide most of the rest.

The upward bias toward recreation is due primarily to faulty estimates of the number of recreation visits to the forests, the report said.

Smith has called a congressional hearing in Sun River, Ore., Thursday to examine the role of logging in forest health. In letters to the secretaries, he said the forest projections should be revised to include the new information.

“Administration officials should not be claiming that Forest Service recreation programs have greater economic benefits than do its commodity activities,” the congressman said in distributing the report.

Smith, a conservative Oregon rancher and friend of the timber industry, retired from the House after serving from 1982-92. He was elected again in November after GOP leaders promised he could serve as chairman of the committee if he returned to help force out embattled Oregon Rep. Wes Cooley.

The government’s revenue projections include indirect revenue generated as a result of the visit to the national forests, including such things as gasoline, travel, food and lodging.

Officials at the Agriculture Department, Interior Department and Forest Service had not seen the report and had no immediate comment Tuesday.

“Pitting recreation versus timber misses the point,” said Ray Rasker, an economist for The Wilderness Society in Bozeman, Mont.

“The more important contribution of national forests is not their use, but the setting they create for people who want to live and do business in a rural area,” Rasker said.

“A lot of businesses now are footloose. They are mobile. They don’t need to be in a metropolitan area or next to a factory. Things like being close to mountains, rivers and streams and being able to see wildlife - that’s what matters in a lot of business locations,” he said.