Clinton Signs Appropriations Bill
Rider Takes Swipe at Roads Moratorium

From the June issue of The Forestry Source

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Although he threatened to veto the measure until the very end, President Clinton reversed himself and recently signed a $6 billion emergency supplemental spending bill with numerous environment-related riders and funds for conservation programs. One of the riders was a controversial amendment by Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) designed to offset the decrease of revenues to timber-dependent communities that could occur from the USDA Forest Service's proposed moratorium on roadbuilding in currently roadless areas of national forests.

"The point of this amendment is not to overturn the Forest Service's roadless area moratorium-despite my strong belief that the moratorium is bad public policy," said Craig. "What I'm trying to do is work with the administration to give them an incentive to minimize the impact this moratorium will have on rural communities throughout the West."

The rider directs the Forest Service to find "substitute projects" for those halted or delayed by the proposed 18-month moratorium. The rider would also require the Forest Service to pay any state 25 percent of revenue lost-up to a total of $3 million-from timber sales that were not authorized because of the moratorium. The moratorium, which was announced in late January and underwent a comment period until March 30, is expected to go into effect in mid-summer, according to a Forest Service official familiar with the issue.

Despite Craig's assurances, members of the environmental community questioned the objectives of the rider. Natural Resources Defense Council legislative director Greg Wetstone said the measure would negate the moratorium because it is "intended to make sure that just as many trees are cut down."

Although the Craig rider received much of the attention in the natural resources community, the primary purpose of the supplemental appropriations bill, officially titled the 1998 Supplemental Appropriations and Rescissions Act (HR 3579), is to provide funds for weather-related disaster relief and for military operations in Bosnia and the Persian Gulf. It also provides funds for the Natural Resources Conservation Service's watershed and flood-prevention programs; the "emergency conservation program," which helps farmers affected by weather disasters; repairs to National Park Service facilities; and funds for national, state, and private forest disaster recovery.

The funds earmarked for disaster recovery will help mitigate the damage caused by a series of ice storms that damaged nearly 18 million acres of rural and urban forests throughout Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont in January. The New England congressional delegation was successful in garnering $48 million in supplemental emergency funds over the next two to three years. President Clinton's signing of the bill means $20 million will be available immediately, and that an additional $28 million will be requested over the next one to two years.

The Forest Service will distribute the funds to the affected state forestry departments. Those organizations will then deliver the money through traditional state and private forestry programs. The Northeastern Forest Experiment Station will also conduct research on the event.

Most of the 18 million acres that sustained damage are privately owned lands. Nearly 230,000 acres of the total acreage damaged is federal land. The Forest Service estimates total losses at more than $2 billion.