Posted on 03/21/2020 5:08:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
Thirty million dollars would make anyone sit up and pay attention, especially when the words following include the government and taxpayers. But is $30 million each year what it costs to maintain the protection of a federally designated national forest?
Surprisingly, no. This average annual loss of $30 million stems not from protecting the forest, but logging the forest, Southeast Alaskas Tongass National Forest in particular. Thats equivalent to over $100,000 per timber job in the area.
When the current administration announced its intent to modify the protections of the Roadless Rule that restricts logging in over 9 million acres of the 16.7 million acre Tongass National Forest, some Americans might have cheered the move as regulatory reform. While plenty of environmental edicts are already straining the nations finances, rolling back the Roadless Rule could actually swell Americas bloated debt stomach, resulting in a new heaping plate of government costs.
According to findings produced by our colleagues at Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS), based in part on Government Accountability Office research, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has lost nearly $600 million over two decades through roadbuilding and timber sales an average of $30 million every year. As TCS explained:
"Every year, the USFS prepares and conducts sales for the rights to harvest millions of board feet of timber from the Tongass. These sales have historically generated less revenue than the USFS spends to administer them, resulting in large net losses for U.S. taxpayers. New budget data reveal that the USFS has continued to lose millions of dollars on Tongass timber sales in recent years."
Why has this happened? Even those in the timber industry who dispute the use of the term subsidy to describe whats going on acknowledge the federal government has a lot to learn about controlling forest management costs. As a leader of the Alaska Forest Association put it several years ago, The Forest Service cost of preparing timber sales is very high compared to what the State [of Alaska] spends preparing their timber sales, but that is a management issue, not a subsidy. The agency does a good job growing trees; they just spend too much money.
Writing for the Cato Institute, Randal OToole put a finer point on the problem by noting early on that the more damage timber sales created the larger were the budgets that managers got to control. Every level of the agencys hierarchy had a stake in the below-cost timber sale program because as much as a third of the funds went for agency overhead.
Those dismal incentives are not likely to improve if more federal roadbuilding to access logging sites which already accounts for a good 40 percent of the governments costs is encouraged in the Tongass. After all, Taxpayers for Common Sense projects that over the next four years, the USFS could end up losing more than $180 million from the existing timber operation. Lifting the Roadless Rule will add more than 9 million acres to the areas that could be logged, and with it the prospects for super-sized taxpayer liabilities.
Despite federal managerial shortcomings, the Tongass has provided impressive economic returns in other ways. Tourism, fishing, and hunting industries amount to 26 percent of the local economy of Southeast Alaska, far more so than timber harvesting provides. Most notably, salmon harvested from within the rivers flowing throughout the Tongass provide for 28 percent of the commercial salmon harvest across the entire state, with the Alaskan fishing industry yielding $986 million annually. On top of all of this, the Tongass itself provides for over 10,000 jobs for Alaska residents.
Taxpayers should not oppose all logging in the Tongass; they simply deserve better federal policy than throwing good money after bad. Environmental reviews for commercial operations can be streamlined, access to existing forest roads should be rationally priced, and successful private-sector management techniques should be implemented.
Until these steps are taken, however, the Roadless Rule will have to suffice in limiting the damage to taxpayers wallets. For now, the benefits of maintaining an ecosystem thats profitable for several economic sectors outweigh the costs of expanding a proven government money-loser targeted at one sector.
Can you virtual log? They you can log in to do your logging.
*Then
So, the answer is not outlawing logging but to slash useless and bloated bureaucracy
They now require that most, if not all, existing roads are now closed, ripped and slashed-obliterated. Then, when a fire does happen, they have to hire bulldozers and excavators to reopen those roads for the fire crews to get to the fire at 35 to 4500 dollars an hour.
Close down the USFS and BLM and give the management of that trust back to the local areas.
I am not sure that Weyerhauser ever regained all that timber burned in place from Mt. St. Helens.
Sell the disputed area to Weyerhauser, with the caveat to allow the usual camping, or seasonal hunting parcels.
Yes indeed. So, if I bring my laptop into Tongass National Forest, I can only read FR posts... I won't be able to post new threads or reply.
Amen! I was thinking that the entire time reading this! Its outrageous that they would spend that much for nothing.
Exactly.
Close down the USFS and BLM and give the management of that trust back to the local areas.
The real question is do we want local corruption or federal corruption.
Wish they allowed it in Oregon. Some of the most marketable trees in the world are being burned.
The industries; lumber, fishing, tourism, that use the roads should build or pay contractors to build the roads. Paying the federal USFS to build roads is foolish pouring of funds into an inefficient government bureaucracy staffed with leftist, anti-capitalist greenies.
We live in the Tongass. The real cost in devastation by the logging industry is irreparable. The article mentions the additional economic sources in theTongass of tourism, hunting, fishing yet these have been negatively impacted by the logging industry as old growth habitats crucial for the life cycle of both wildlife and fish.
The loss of these forests coupled with the introduction of potent chemicals used by the logging industry and abuses by logging companies while the USFS looks the other way is devastating. Abuses like bulldozing wolf and bear dens even when in use to circumvent protective regs that prevent logging near them.
that coupled with the Appalachian lifestyle and mindsetthat is fostered by city officials in small towns like ours has heavily damaged anadromous streams and lakes.
Which can the local communities control more? The Federal? Or the County?
ALL the county forestry program I know are successful and better managed with a hell of a lot of more results than ANY state or federal management scheme.
The real question is do we want local corruption or federal corruption.
Our Founding Fathers were strong supporters of local/small government.
So according to that person, logging has cause extreme damage to their area. Fine then, when they take over the management of their area and when they have severe forest fires break out, or damage from extreme disease of that forest, then they get NO support from any disaster management as a result of their decisions to withdraw from the forest management of their area.
What potent chemicals? Chain saw oil?
Yes. And the virtual forest fires can be suppressed with virtual firefighters.
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