Can't Save the Forest for the Trees

National forests generated $6.7 billion for hundreds of rural counties and their residents in 1991, but as the federal government lost the gumption to harvest timber, that revenue was replaced with a sort of botanical welfare:

The nation's decision to leave its national forests to nature's whims, despite their enormous monetary value, swept over hundreds of small logging towns with all the force of a tsunami.

Congress tried to calm the waters, first in 1993 by granting counties hurt by the owl's 1991 listing annual "owl guarantee payments"; and then, in 2000, by allocating $500 million in "safety net" funding to help all federal lands counties cover their budget shortfalls. But safety net funding wasn't designed to permanently replace lost harvest revenue; and now, in a rare moment of fiscal responsibility, Congress appears poised to cancel the deal--a possibility that has many a county commissioner on the warpath.

Read the rest here.

More voices of reason on National Forest mismanagement (and the excellent idea to auction off the whole mess for parts) here, here, and here.