Editorial: Time ripe for timber reform bill

Monday, July 26, 1999 | 9:45 a.m.

In 1997 Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., came within one vote of ending corporate welfare for the timber industry. Bryan offered an amendment to an appropriations bill that would have cut subsidies for logging companies that build roads in our national forests, but the vote ended in a 50-50 deadlock. Since Vice President Al Gore wasn't in Washington to break the tie, Bryan's efforts failed.

The controversy over these timber subsidies isn't going to go away anytime soon, though. As Gannett News Service reported last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved $32 million more than the U.S. Forest Service asked for in its timber management program, including $1.6 million for engineering and design work to build new logging roads.

Despite his setback in 1997 Bryan will seek passage of an amendment to the Interior Department appropriations bill, possibly sometime this week, that would cut the extra $34 million the Appropriations Committee added to keep the timber industry happy. Bryan instead wants to shift these funds so that almost $21 million would be spent to repair roads harming the environment and to boost wildlife habitat management programs. The remaining $13 million would be returned to the U.S. treasury for debt reduction.

Bryan bases his opposition on two principles. First, he believes the timber industry -- not the taxpayers -- should be paying to build roads in our national forests that serve only to benefit these companies. Second, the subsidies, which promote more logging, end up harming the environment in our national forests. The impact from excessive logging is not as severe in Nevada as it is in other states in the West. Still, it is believed that old logging roads near Lake Tahoe have created runoff that have muddied the lake.

Although timber companies have put up a fight in the past over the subsidies, the fact is the amount of money Bryan wants to cut is relatively modest -- at least by Washington standards. The Senate should end this subsidy now. There is no need for the American taxpayer to continue financing a practice that only ends up damaging the environment, costing us even more money when the government is then forced to repair the harm done by excessive logging.