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Don't hold a fire sale for rural counties
From the Oregonian:
Don't hold a fire sale for rural counties
Congress must find a way to supply rural county and school aid
without selling off public lands
Saturday, February 18, 2006
T he Bush administration's plan to sell off public lands to
temporarily fund aid to counties and schools would leave both the
U.S. Forest Service and rural counties weaker than they are today.
The administration has compiled a list of more than 300,000 acres of
federal land that it might put on the auction block. It wants to use
proceeds from the sales, an estimated $800 million, as a source of
funding for reduced federal aid to rural counties and schools.
To put it plainly, the administration is proposing to sell public
land in places like Oregon's Columbia Gorge just to provide a rural
county like Hood River with half the federal aid it has received over
the past six years. That's a nonstarter with the public, with the
leaders of rural counties and with Congress.
Given the huge federal budget deficit, we're prepared to concede that
rural counties are going to have to settle for something less than
the $1.5 billion that they have shared over the past six years. But
Congress must search the budget to come up with more certain, and
more appropriate, sources of funding than a fire sale of U.S. Forest
Service lands.
Conservation groups are already at full cry about the land sales,
even though they have little or no idea what lands would be involved,
or whether it makes sense for the Forest Service to own them.
We're not opposed to the agency sorting through its enormous
inventory of lands -- which has climbed from 191 million acres to 193
million acres over the past decade -- and choosing to sell or swap
some of the more isolated parcels.
However, any sales or trades of public lands must be done with the
goal of strengthening the national forest system, not just for a one-
time grab of cash. It's not inconceivable that it would even make
sense to sell some of the smaller fragments of land the Forest
Service owns in the Columbia Gorge, if there is other, more critical
land in the gorge that the agency could then acquire.
But that's not what's going on here. This isn't about making the
national forest system stronger. It is about rounding up hundreds of
parcels and tens of thousands of acres of public land for some cash
to throw at rural counties.
There must be a better way. Congress, led by the Oregon delegation,
must find a more sensible and lasting revenue source for rural
counties and schools.
found at
http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editori
al/1140220535161380.xml&coll=7
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