[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 152 (Wednesday, October 12, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6465-S6466]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BINGAMAN (for himself, Ms. Murkowski, Mr. Baucus, Mr. 
        Crapo, Mr. Wyden, Mr. Risch, Mr. Reid, Mr. Cochran, Mr. Tester, 
        Mr. Blunt, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Heller, Mr. Udall of New Mexico, 
        Mrs. Boxer, Ms. Cantwell, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Bennet, Mr. Merkley, 
        Mr. Sanders, Mr. Johnson of South Dakota, Mr. Begich, Mrs. 
        McCaskill, Mr. Udall of Colorado, Mr. Franken, and Mr. Levin):
  S. 1692. A bill to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools and Community 
Self-Determination Act of 2000, to provide full funding for the 
Payments in Lieu of Taxes program, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, today I introduced, along with Senator 
Murkowski and 22 other Senators S. 1692, the County Payments 
Reauthorization Act of 2011. The bill would provide dependable funding 
to support public schools, transportation infrastructure, and other 
critical county programs in more than 1,900 counties in 49 States. 
Specifically, it would continue to fund for 5 more years the Payments 
In Lieu of Taxes Program, and it would reauthorize the Secure Rural 
Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. The Secure Rural Schools 
Act expired at the end of September.
  Economists have long said that funding for local governments not only 
provides one of the most efficient and immediate ways to create and 
save jobs, it also helps to ensure that essential community services on 
which economic growth depends are maintained. These programs have 
proven that point in recent years. They have been lifelines for 
financially strapped rural counties and the thousands of Americans they 
employ and they contract with. They employ a multitude of public school 
teachers, support countless miles of county road projects, fund 
thousands of collaborative forest and watershed restoration projects, 
and pay for hundreds of community wildfire risk reduction programs in 
all parts of the country.
  I would like to give one example from my home State of New Mexico. 
Many of my colleagues may know that the Wallow fire this summer grew to 
become the largest fire in the history of Arizona. My colleagues may 
not know that its leading edge burned more than 15,000 acres into New 
Mexico, and it threatened the community of Luna in Catron County, New 
Mexico.
  When I visited the town of Luna, the community's firefighters told me 
the wildfire risk reduction projects they had completed using funds 
from the Secure Rural Schools Program helped to save their town. The 
funds from this bill also will fund many projects to help their local 
forests and watersheds and many others around New Mexico to recover 
from the severe fires that burned there this summer.
  Despite the important work these programs support, we recognize that 
funding these programs is not easy, given the financial circumstance in 
which we find ourselves. We worked for months to build this strong 
coalition in the Senate and among the stakeholders in support of these 
programs across the country. In the process there have been an array of 
differing views about the details of how these programs should be 
structured going forward.
  For example, recognizing the difficult financial situation in 
communities around the country and the urgent need to create jobs, some 
would significantly increase funding for these programs. Others, 
recognizing the challenging fiscal situation that the Federal 
Government faces, would sharply reduce funding for these programs. Some 
would shift the emphasis of the Secure Rural Schools Program to 
forestry projects such as those covered by titles II and III of that 
program. Others would shift the emphasis to public schools and to road 
projects.
  But most importantly, there has been broad agreement on the most 
critical issues. First, there is broad agreement that funding for these 
two programs is immensely important. Second, there is broad agreement 
that the only way for us to successfully continue that funding is for 
us to renew the compromise we negotiated in 2008. Congress 
overwhelmingly passed that compromise, it has provided funding for 
these programs for the last 4 years, and our communities have broadly 
supported it.
  The alternative, which seems to have become routine in Congress, is 
to emphasize our differences and destroy the coalition of support that 
will be essential to continue funding of these programs.

[[Page S6466]]

  I greatly appreciate the support and leadership of Senator Murkowski 
and many others. Let me mention all those who have helped with this 
bill and who are cosponsoring this effort: Senator Baucus, Senator 
Crapo, Senator Wyden, Senator Risch, Senator Reid of Nevada, Senator 
Cochran, Senator Tester, Senator Blunt, Senator Feinstein, Senator 
Heller, Senator Tom Udall, Senator Boxer, Senator Cantwell, Senator 
Murray, Senator Bennet, Senator Merkley, Senator Sanders, Senator Tim 
Johnson, Senator Begich, Senator McCaskill, Senator Mark Udall, Senator 
Franken, and Senator Levin--all of whom are cosponsoring this important 
legislation.
  I hope the rest of the Senate will join us once again to support the 
continuation of these important programs and enact this legislation.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to thank Senator Bingaman 
for leading the effort to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools and 
Community Self-Determination Act.
  Over 100 years ago this Congress passed a law which formed a compact 
with counties, boroughs and parishes in rural America where the 
National Forests are located. That compact stipulated that the Forest 
Service would share 25 percent of its revenues with local governments 
to support roads and schools.
  This agreement was put into law 60 years before the Payment in Lieu 
of Tax law was written to help compensate counties for the loss of 
revenue caused by the inability to tax federal property.
  Over the years, the Forest Service shared billions of dollars with 
the counties and, until 1990, the amount of those payments increased 
almost every year. In fact, the Forest Service sold $1.6 billion worth 
of timber in fiscal year 1990. As a result, counties received more than 
$402 million in 25 percent payments to support schools and roads.
  More importantly, the Forest Service timber sale program in 1990 
generated more than 102,000 direct and indirect jobs in areas that now 
have the highest unemployment rates in the country. Those timber sales 
generated more than $5.3 billion--that is billion with a ``B'' of 
economic activity and $800 million in Federal income taxes. Further, 
revenue from the Forest Service's timber sale program supported many of 
the other Forest Service's multiple-use programs, including recreation, 
wilderness, road building and maintenance, and fire suppression.
  All that changed in 1990 and 1991, when activists used the Endangered 
Species Act to reduce, and in some instances stop, timber harvesting 
across the West. If I could wave a magic wand and legislate reforms to 
the many environmental laws that have been twisted and misconstrued in 
order to block any development of our natural resources, rather than 
ensuring responsible decision making by our Federal land management 
agencies, as Congress intended, I would.
  In the long run, I think that is what is needed, and I am convinced 
that given the economic malaise this country suffers, the American 
public is beginning to understand the wrongheaded direction our Federal 
land management has taken over the last two and a half decades.
  But I don't think I can accomplish that in this Congress, and I am 
compelled to avoid adding any additional pain and suffering to the 
shoulders of the small rural communities that depend on Secure Rural 
Schools and Community Self-Determination Act payments. Therefore I am 
joining Senators Bingaman and Wyden and others in cosponsoring 
legislation to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-
Determination Act for another 5-year period.
  Senator Bingaman has fully described the bill, but it reauthorizes 
the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act at fiscal 
year 2011 payment levels for 5 more years. We have reduced the annual 
reduction in payments from the 10 percent level in current law down to 
a 5-percent annual reduction. Under this plan, counties, parishes, 
communities and schools will receive up to $364 million in temporary 
assistance each year for the next 5 years.
  I say ``temporary'' because this program was, and is, designed to be 
a short-term bridge to allow counties and communities to transition to 
the new economic reality that our wrongheaded Federal lands policy has 
forced upon them.
  I want everyone to also understand that while having signed on to 
this bill I am also considering a number of other alternative solutions 
that have the promise of generating enough revenue and jobs from 
Federal land activities to make our counties whole. I am willing to go 
as far as turning control of some Federal lands over to counties so 
that they may get some economic benefit from them. But first I will be 
taking a careful look at Representative Hastings's bill to generate 
additional resource management by lifting restrictions and expediting 
the processes needed to offer additional timber sales.
  I want everyone to know that if a legitimate, acceptable, offset to 
pay for the cost of this program is not identified by the time the bill 
is ready to move to the Senate floor, I will have no alternative but to 
remove my name from the bill and will have to work to defeat the bill.
  I would tell my fellow Senators that the folks in the House Resources 
Committee are fundamentally correct. We are going to have to either 
utilize our Federal lands to support our rural communities or we should 
divest the Federal Government of those lands and let the States, or the 
counties, manage those lands. I look forward to working with my 
colleagues in the House to find a path forward for this approach in 
this and future Congresses.
  I will close by speaking directly to the counties, parishes, boroughs 
and communities that have now depended on the Secure Rural School 
program for more than a decade--and for some counties in Oregon, 
Washington and Northwest California for more than two decades--the 
Secure Rural Schools Payments are coming to an end. It could be this 
year if enough people do not rally around the bill that Senator 
Bingaman, I, and our other cosponsors have proposed. It could be 2 
years from now if Representative Hastings and other Representatives 
prevail. Or it could be 5 years from now if we find the acceptable 
offsets needed to pay for our legislative proposal. My fervent hope is 
that the program will be replaced by a forest management system that 
actually puts people back to work in the forest, but it's coming to an 
end, and the counties and schools need to prepare for that eventuality.
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