Right for Forests and Taxpayers

Finally, a hopeful sign for the nation’s forests. A decades-old federal subsidy that has encouraged timber companies to cut 400,000 miles of roads through public forest land could be ending.

Following a meeting last week in House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s office, Republicans agreed to support an end to the U.S. Forest Service’s “purchaser road credit.” A resource giveaway rather than a direct tax giveaway, this program has enabled loggers to recoup their road-building costs by getting credits that allowed them to cut more trees on public land without charge or at deep discount.

The deal was spearheaded by Rep. John Edward Porter (R-Ill.), a leader of the so-called “Green Republicans.” The subsidy rankles environmentalists because the dense tangle of dirt roads--now stretching roughly nine times the distance covered by the nation’s interstate highways--is responsible for escalating soil erosion, mudslides and the degradation of surrounding forests, rivers and wildlife. Even worse, those roads have become the Forest Service’s problem when the loggers moved on to new groves. If they are not maintained, ruts and erosion increase; the alternative--a costly one--is to obliterate the roads. This has been a bad deal for taxpayers, whatever its packaging.

In 1997, efforts to end this unwarranted subsidy failed in two narrow floor votes, and last January President Clinton wisely imposed an 18-month moratorium on building logging roads. At first, the moratorium so enraged some western Republicans that they petulantly threatened to shut down the Forest Service unless Clinton relented. But moderate “Green Republicans” apparently persuaded their conservative colleagues to reverse course.

The Interior Department appropriation bill, with language ending the timber credit program, should reach the House floor this month.

The agreement to stop this giveaway is far from a complete solution since it ends only the federal subsidy, not the road building itself. Loggers will still be able to cut roads at their own expense. That activity, even if unsubsidized, will add to the Forest Service’s $10-billion backlog of repair on existing roads. New money to make headway on this backlog should also be a top priority.