Rural County Timber Payments to End

Logging communities in the Pacific Northwest will be among those hit hardest by the recent decision in the U.S. House to vote down a bill to reauthorize a federal payment program for schools and other services in rural counties due primarily to disagreements about how to make oil companies pay for it. At dispute is whether to collect royalties from existing offshore oil and gas leases or to collect them from new offshore oil projects.

Under the “timber payments program,” rural counties received federal funding to offset lost revenue caused by conservation measures that sharply reduced logging on federal lands. The Public Land Communities Transition Act (H.R. 3058) was defeated June 5 under special House rules which required a two-thirds vote, rather than a simple majority. Proponents of the timber payments programs were dealt a second blow when an emergency one-year funding measure was cut from a Senate defense spending bill June 19. The bill could be revived for a House vote under normal rules, but no action is expected before the July recess. Congress will reconvene in September.

Read the update to this article that appeared in our December 2008 issue.