Rural counties will be spared from steep cuts to school and road budgets, and national forestlands will not go on the chopping block -- at least for another year -- under a deal struck Monday.
The counties will continue to receive hundreds of millions of federal dollars to compensate them for depressed logging revenue under an agreement reached between the Bush administration and three Northwest senators.
The administration also dropped, at least for now, its idea of paying off the counties by selling federal forest acreage including land in the Columbia River Gorge and scenic Grande Ronde Valley of northeast Oregon.
The White House said it would back the payments program for one year at full funding levels. The program, set to expire at the end of next month, provides more than $500 million to mostly rural counties nationally for roads, schools and other public projects. Oregon counties receive more than half the money.
"It's a year's worth of good news for hard-hit rural communities," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who placed holds on Bush nominations to key posts at the Interior and Agriculture departments in protest of the administration's plans to reduce payments to the counties. Wyden has agreed to lift those holds.
The administration's pledge came in a Monday letter to Wyden and Sens. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, from Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey.
Doug Robertson, a Douglas County commissioner, said Rey's words are "extremely important."
"They indicate full support of the administration for full funding for a year," Robertson said. "That's something up to this point we had not had publicly."
But neither the administration nor Congress has suggested a source for the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to pay for the temporary fix. And policymakers haven't decided what to do after the one-year extension expires.
Not convinced
Jim Raffenburg, a commissioner in Josephine County, said he's glad to hear of the administration's commitment but still isn't convinced the money will come through.
"The agreement to work for a solution is not the same as a solution," he said.
Josephine County relies on the federal payments for 25 percent of its county budget, and the loss of the money would decimate county services, from sheriff's deputies to public health, Raffenburg said. He said county leaders plan a meeting later this month to discuss the hard realities of the money disappearing.
The administration may be less willing to spend money in the West because it already has poured lots of it into work on Western forests at high risk of wildfires, he said.
Counties historically received a cut of proceeds from logging on federal land. But their income plummeted as timber sales gave way to protection for the northern spotted owl and other wildlife.
A 2000 law guaranteed federal "safety-net" payments tied to past logging levels. Since the law's passage, Oregon counties have received $1.6 billion.
Chorus of protest
But in February the administration proposed phasing out the guaranteed payments over five years and selling 309,000 acres of national forestland to fund the reduced payments. That was met with protest both from counties and environmentalists.
Rey wrote that land sales will not be used to pay for the program this year because there is not enough time to pass the necessary legislation.
But the administration left open the possibility that land sales could be considered as a future source of money.
In his letter to the senators, Rey wrote that the one-year extension will be paid for by "mutually acceptable offsets" that raise money to cover the cost. But he did not suggest specific sources, and Dan Jiron, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman, said that will be up to Congress.
"All along, the administration has been willing to look at other options" besides the land sales, Jiron said.
Pressure for logging
Environmental groups said loss of the county payments again would make county revenue dependent on logging, producing more pressure for cutting.
Some of the county money is funneled through local groups that use it to fund forest and habitat restoration projects. That work has helped groups once at odds over public lands to work more cooperatively and find projects -- such as forest thinning -- they can agree on, groups said.
"It's made tremendous progress in bridging the gap," said Steve Pedery of the Oregon Natural Resources Council. He said the one-year extension "is certainly good news for limping through the year" but leaves counties in limbo after that.
Earlier this year, Wyden suggested paying for the program by closing a tax loophole for government contractors, but Congress used those savings to fund tax cuts.
Wyden said he wants to negotiate a multiyear plan for the timber payments so counties have more certainty in their budgeting.
"Rural communities can't plan unless they know what the funding of this program is going to be," Wyden said.
"Constant contact"
In April, Smith had proposed extending the payments for one year. The senator has been in "constant contact" with the administration about the timber payments program, said Chris Matthews, a Smith spokesman.
"I wish our forest industries were healthy enough that we never needed a county payment program," Smith said in a written statement. "But the fact is that we do need one, and while I'd prefer a long-term solution, we have to make sure our communities can get by in the here and now."
Matthews said Smith isn't opposed to the principle of selling federal land, though it depends on the specific parcel. "The senator in general believes there is too much land held by the federal government now, and it's managed poorly."The Oregonian
