[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 135 (Friday, December 8, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Page S11698]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      FEDERAL DISASTERS IN OREGON

  Mr. SMITH. I rise on the Senate floor today to lament a state of 
emergency in the rural parts of my State. The emergency we face is 
related to natural resources but different from those of drought and 
hurricane that the Senate has discussed and responded to.
  The disasters in Oregon are not acts of God but of an infinitely more 
fallible entity--the Federal Government. Adverse decisions on forest 
and fisheries management are imperiling entire communities and entire 
ways of life.
  I am not seeking, at this time, to reverse those management 
decisions. Although they deserve intense scrutiny. What I am seeking is 
that this Government recognize that its decisions have a cost--one that 
is borne on the backs of those who can least afford It. These people 
and communities need relief as much as those burdened by other 
disasters not of their creation.
  Over a decade ago, the Federal Government sought fit to bring tens of 
thousands of loggers and mill workers to their knees by stopping timber 
harvest on Federal lands in Oregon. It did so in the name of the 
spotted owl, a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. I 
should add that after 15 years of negligible harvest on these lands, 
the owl is still not recovering and its habitat is being incinerated in 
catastrophic wildfire.
  That timber war had more casualties than just jobs in the woods. 
County governments receive a share of timber receipts from Federal 
land--25 percent from the Forest Service and 50 percent from the BLM. 
For generations these funds have offset the inability to tax Federal 
property--which makes up the vast majority of most counties in my 
State.
  When timber harvest evaporated, so did county budgets. In 1999, I 
came to this floor to describe to my colleagues what was happening in 
rural Oregon. Schools went to 4-day weeks, dropped sports and 
extracurricular activities, and curtailed other programs. Communities 
were forced to make heart-breaking decisions over whether to cut back 
social service programs or school funding--or to sharply reduce 
sheriffs' patrols and close jails or to cut out all extracurricular 
activities at their schools.
  Fortunately, Congress created a safety net in the Secure Rural 
Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000. This provided 
funding to counties based on historic rather than current timber 
harvest levels. And not just Oregon counties. In the life of that 
legislation, California received California received $308 million; 
Idaho, $102 million; and Montana, $63.4 million.
  That program expired, on our watch, 2 months ago.
  My colleague from Oregon and I have left no stone unturned to find 
money for an extension. Those efforts have been unsuccessful and we 
stand here, with our timber dependent counties, at the mercy of the 
Government.
  Their plight is compounded by a second Federally created disaster in 
Oregon's commercial salmon fishing industry, delivering a double blow 
to many of the same counties. Commercial salmon fishing remained this 
season along more than 400 nautical miles, stretching from Florence, OR 
to Pigeon Point, CA. Estimates put the impact of this closure to Oregon 
and California fishing communities around $60 million. This year marked 
the first time in history that there was no commercial salmon harvest 
in Curry and Coos counties in Oregon. Curry County also stands to lose 
$6,591,993 or 62.3 percent of its road and general discretionary funds 
with the failure of Congress to extend the Secure Rural Schools and 
Community Self-Determination Act.
  Mr. President, the clock is winding down on the 109th and soon 
Members of Congress will leave town to return to their districts or 
States. We will be leaving without extending this important safety net 
for our rural counties and without completing action on the annual 
appropriations bills to fund the Government. I can only tell my 
counties and Oregon's fishermen that the fire will not die on these 
issues, it will only grow more intense when the 110th Congress 
convenes.

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