[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 99 (Wednesday, July 22, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1384-E1385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                                  1999

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. NANCY PELOSI

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 21, 1998

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4193) making 
     appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related 
     agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, and 
     for other purposes:

  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Furse amendment to 
reduce funding for the federal timber sales program and to reallocate 
the funds for better use within the U.S. Forest Service.
  There is a very basic fact associated with our federal timber sales 
program: It is intended to produce revenue and it does not. It not only 
fails to fulfill this promise to the taxpayer, timber sales actually 
result in added costs to the taxpayer. Why would we engage in such a 
financial relationship when we know that it is a big loser?
  Who pays? Not the private corporations doing the logging. The 
taxpayer pays. It simply does not make good management sense to conduct 
a federal program in such a financially inefficient manner. Look at the 
numbers: According to the General Accounting Office, the Forest 
Service's federal timber program cost taxpayers almost $1 billion from 
1992-94--more than $330 million on average for each year. Last year, 
the loss was $88.6 million, by Forest Service reports.
  The cry for government reform should include reforming the way the 
U.S. Forest Service loses hundreds of millions of tax dollars in 
logging and unnecessary logging road construction in our national 
forests. The proposed

[[Page E1385]]

elimination of the Purchaser Road Credit Program is a good first step 
toward bringing an end to subsidies for the timber companies at the 
trough of the federal timber program.
  The Furse amendment transfers funds from the timber sales program and 
puts them where all Americans can reap the benefits--in environmental 
restoration and improved recreational management. In the words of the 
Chief of the U.S. Forest Service: If we are to redeem our claim to be 
the world's foremost conservation leader, our job is to maintain and 
restore ecological and socially important environmental values . . . 
Values such as wilderness and roadless areas, clean water, protection 
of rare species, old growth forest, naturalness--these are the reasons 
most Americans cherish their public lands.
  Now is the time to build on that concept and the momentum of 
eliminating the Purchaser Road Credit Program by eliminating all 
subsidies for the federal timber program. Let's put an end to this 
corporate handout. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the Furse 
amendment.

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