The U.S. Treasury collected less than 10 percent of the $1.85 billion worth of timber sold over the last three years by the U.S. Forest Service to private loggers, according to a General Accounting Office audit.
Congress appropriated $1.2 billion to support USFS timber sales over a three-year period ending on Sept. 30, 1997.
Timber sale revenues were $1.85 billion, but the treasury only received $124.5 million. About $1.7 billion, or 92 percent of the revenues, went to accounts that the USFS operates independently of Congress to pay for projects like reforestation and salvage logging.
"GAO's audit confirms once again that taxpayers pay a huge price to subsidize commercial logging of our national forests," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.
The audit highlights the financial pressures the USFS faces as logging of national forests-which once provided 90 percent of the Forest Service's revenue-has fallen to about one-fourth the level of a decade ago.
Mark Rey, GOP staff director for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the Treasury can expect to receive little money as long as timber harvests remain low. Rey: "Receipts have been falling generally as a consequence of the efforts made by many people who want to reduce timber harvests" (Scott Sonner, AP/San Francisco Chronicle/Examiner online/others, 11/24).
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