Veto looms for timber program

WASHINGTON – President Bush said Wednesday he will veto a bill that would continue payments to mostly Western rural counties hurt by federal cutbacks in logging.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., sponsored the bill, which would extend the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act for four years. The law provides hundreds of millions of dollars to Washington, Idaho, Oregon and other states that once depended on federal timber sales to pay for schools, libraries and other services.

Bush said Wednesday he supports the program but wants the bill to include certain spending cuts and require a phaseout of the payments. DeFazio’s bill does not meet those conditions, Bush said.

The veto threat came as lawmakers wrangled over how to pay for extending the timber program.

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., criticized DeFazio’s plan to charge oil companies for royalties lost because of a government error on drilling leases in the late 1990s.

DeFazio said the plan merely closes a loophole created when the Clinton administration failed to include a threshold requiring royalty payments by oil companies once market prices reach a certain level. Recovering money lost from the flawed 1998-‘99 leases has been a priority of lawmakers from both parties for years.

“I think it’s only reasonable that massively profitable oil companies pay a royalty or fee similar to all the other royalties” the federal government charges for lease of federal lands, DeFazio said.

But Walden said the plan would face a likely court challenge and could violate terms of federal contracts with oil and gas companies. It also faces near certain defeat in the Senate, where lawmakers have repeatedly rejected attempts to “fix” the 1998-‘99 leases.

DeFazio’s bill “is a known failure in the Senate (it has been rejected each of the three times it has been sent over from the House), creates a bitter, partisan divide in the House and most likely violates contract law,” Walden said in a letter to county commissioners in Oregon and other states affected by the timber program.

“I’m willing to vote against my party – as I have” to support the timber program, Walden added. “I am willing to vote against my president – as I have. But I am not willing to abrogate contracts as a way to grab money to solve the federal government’s breach of agreement.”

After a fierce, partisan debate on the House floor Wednesday, lawmakers agreed to delay a vote on the bill until today at the earliest. DeFazio said he hoped to get the two-thirds support needed to approve the bill, which is being considered under special rules for emergency legislation.

But if it is defeated, DeFazio said he and other supporters will keep trying to extend the rural schools law, which was initially adopted in 2000 to help Western communities devastated by logging cutbacks in the 1990s.

At a glance

The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act helps pay for schools, roads and public safety in 700 rural counties in 39 states. Most of the money goes to six Western states – Oregon, Idaho, California, Washington, Montana and Alaska. Hundreds of teachers in rural districts throughout the country could lose their jobs if the law is not extended, lawmakers said.