[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 151 (Tuesday, September 23, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9261-S9262]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TIMBER-DEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, while I think most of us have been focused 
on H.R. 6049, as amended by the Senate, primarily on the tax extenders 
and some of the energy tax credits and provisions that we believe are 
critically important to our economy and to the American business sector 
that is, by any measure, having difficulty at the moment, something is 
also in this legislation that is phenomenally important to timber-
dependent school districts throughout the United States but dominantly 
in the Pacific Northwest. That is a provision called the Secure Rural 
Schools and Community Self-Determination Program.

  Now, if I were in Oregon, I would call it the Wyden-Craig bill. If I 
am in Idaho, I call it the Craig-Wyden bill. It is legislation that 
both Senator Wyden and I, a good number of years ago, fashioned when I 
was chairing the Forestry and Public Lands Subcommittee and he was my 
ranking member, when we came to the Senate and said we have the rural 
schools of our timber-dependent communities and counties in crisis.
  Through the decade of the 1990s, we saw a dramatic reduction in the 
allowable cut of timber on our public land forests for a variety of 
reasons. As a result, a 1908 policy, established by Gifford Pinchot and 
President Teddy Roosevelt, said if we are going to create these forest 
preserves, we have to connect the communities of interest with them. By 
that, I do not mean the Sierra Club. I mean that little community 
sitting out in the forest that is trying to make a living off our 
forests and to supply to its county its roads and bridges and to its 
citizens its schools. We will give them a piece of the stumpage or the 
fee the Federal Government is paid by a private logging company to cut 
that tree and turn it into lumber.
  Down through the years, we did just that. We financed many of our 
counties and many of our schools in these dependent communities largely 
with the stumpage fee from public timber. In some counties, it was 50 
or 60 percent of the county budget. In certain counties of Oregon, in 
the O&C lands of Oregon, it was oftentimes the near whole school budget 
and oftentimes a very large chunk of the county budget.
  Well, when that timber went away, for a lot of different reasons, 
most of them environmental, so went the money. We saw that as a crisis 
in our school districts, looked at it, evaluated it, established a 
formula, came to the Senate, and said: We have to help these school 
districts that do not have fee land. They do not have private property 
to tax. They are all public lands.
  I say to the Presiding Officer, I have counties in my State that are 
larger than your entire State, Mr. President, and most of them are 60 
or 70 percent public lands. They don't pay taxes, but they produce 
product. We, a long time ago, nearly 100 years ago, decided that 
product the Government was selling ought to pay something back to the 
communities. So we established this legislation, Craig-Wyden. It lived 
its life. It secured our schools and our communities. It allowed some 
self-determination. It brought together regional advisory groups, issue 
groups who were warring amongst each other, and it brought common cause 
to the public concern on our national forested lands. It was highly 
successful, but it expired.
  In a time of deficits and financial difficulties and finding all of 
the needed resources we need for our Government, it became very 
difficult to refinance, to reauthorize this program. I have school 
districts that were laying off essential educators, canceling programs 
that would provide for the quality education of the students simply 
because we could not pass this legislation.
  Today, we passed the legislation. Today, we reauthorized, for a 
period of up to 4 years, this program. It is vastly important to 
hundreds of school districts across the Nation. When I say the Pacific 
Northwest--Idaho, Oregon, and Washington--it is Montana, it is 
California--northern California tremendously--it is Mississippi. I 
suspect

[[Page S9262]]

there are a few school districts in the State of Colorado and other 
places that are highly dependent upon this particular piece of 
legislation.
  So I am here this evening to thank my colleagues for being sensitive 
to these public land-bound counties that simply do not have fee land to 
finance their essential needs--roads, bridges, schools--and they cannot 
ask the other taxpayers to assume their burden outside the counties 
within the State.
  My State anticipated the difficulty of reauthorizing and created some 
contingency, but still it would not have funded the full school 
program. So tonight we have acted and sent a very clear message to 
these counties, to these schools that we take educating the young 
people of these school districts as a high priority, that we see the 
vitality of these communities as extremely important.
  So tonight, in section 601, the Secure Rural Schools and Community 
Self-Determination Program, we have reauthorized Craig-Wyden. I thank 
my colleagues for allowing that to happen.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. President. I just have a few short remarks.

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