Time to let rural communities thrive
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March 24, 2012 |
By U.S. Congressman Raul Labrador
Rural communities that once relied on the timber
industry for job creation and tax revenues are
going broke. Over the last several decades,
government regulation and environmental
litigation have hampered the ability of our
rural communities to best use public lands for
economic growth.
In 2000, the Secure Rural Schools (SRS) program
was enacted to compensate rural communities for
their declines in revenue from less timber
receipts. However, the program's expiration is
leaving towns with uncertainty about future
payments and no reforms on the horizon.
The SRS program was designed as a temporary
measure, but Congress has reauthorized this
funding three times as it struggled to find
permanent reform. In a time of record deficits,
we must stop providing short-term fixes to our
financial woes and concentrate on long-term
solutions. Better solutions would empower
Idaho's rural towns and counties that contain
National Forest System land.
To further this goal, I have introduced the
Self-Sufficient Community Lands Act, legislation
which would provide a viable successor to the
SRS program. The idea for this legislation was
first brought to my attention by a bipartisan
group of county commissioners in Idaho during
the 112th Session of Congress.
The legislation would test methods of local
forest management to generate revenue for the
funding of local services in rural communities.
It would let the governor of a state appoint a
local board of trustees to assume management of
select federal forest acreage, known as
"community forest demonstration areas."
Then, the governor would petition the Secretary
of Agriculture to allow management of the
demonstration acreage by the appointed board.
This would give rural communities more local
control of public forest lands.
Hunting and fishing rights, as well as other
recreational uses and tribal rights, would be
protected. However, no federally designated
wilderness areas could be included in the pilot
programs, allowing such areas to remain off
limits to multiple uses.
To put the astonishing disparity in the level of
stewardship of state lands in Idaho to adjoining
federal lands into context, consider this past
fire season.
In 2012, a record fire year, 20 percent of the
national acreage burned was in Idaho.
Of the approximately 1.5 million acres burned in
Idaho, only 4,674 acres burned on state managed
lands, the remainder was on federally managed
lands.
The intent of the Self-Sufficient Community
Lands Act is to reduce federal government
involvement in our counties and create robust
job growth so necessary services have a much
more stable funding source.
The legislation will create good-paying jobs,
empower counties through local management of
federal forests and generate tax revenues for
schools, roads and other public services.
It is time the federal government stopped
preventing communities from utilizing their own
resources and started to let them thrive. |
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