"This land sale is not going to happen"

WASHINGTON, D.C.- Western North Carolina Representative Charles Taylor told U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth that the Administration's proposal to dispose of 300,000 acres of national forest lands was "not going to happen." The exchange came during Chief Bosworth's testimony on the Forest Service's fiscal year 2007 budget request before the House Interior A p p r o p r i a t i o n s Subcommittee, which Rep. Taylor chairs.

"Any sale of forest land affects the communities and counties in which those forests are located", said Taylor. "You cannot put out a plan to sell off this much land, all across the nation, without first sitting down with each of those local communities and talking about their priorities and their goals. They cannot be cut out of the process."

The administration's proposal was intended to generate revenues to pay for reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools and Community SelfDetermination Act of 2000. Under this program, counties which had historically received 25% of the Forest Service's timber harvest revenues were compensated for the enormous declines in harvests under the Clinton administration. The program is set to expire at the end of September of 2006. In his remarks, Rep. Taylor further noted that the administration's proposal would send a disproportionate amount of land sale revenues to school districts in the Pacific Northwest: while more than a third of all the acreage to be sold lies in the South and Midwest regions, their school districts would receive only 10 percent of the revenues.

"I cosponsored the Secure Rural Schools bill because so many of the counties in Western North Carolina depend on those revenues," said Taylor. "We can and we will reauthorize the program this year, but we will not sell off national forest lands to pay for it." Rep. Taylor is a cosponsor of HR 517, legislation to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools program that is currently pending in the House.

On other issues, Rep. Taylor commended Chief Bosworth for the Forest Service's attention to forest health issues, including control of the southern pine beetle and hemlock wooly adelgid, and active fuels reduction efforts to improve the forests resistance to wildfire. He highlighted the efforts of the National Forest employees in North Carolina in balancing recreational access with management, and in producing leading silvicultural research on hydrology and wildlife habitat protection.