Selling Off Our Natural Heritage
Proposal to sell national forest land is ended. . . for now
©Bill Lea
The Bush Administration's plan to sell off parts of the publicly owned national forests across the U.S. has been shelved ... for the time being.
The Administration came up with the plan in 2006 to sell up to 300,000 acres of America's national forest land - including 31,000 acres in the South. Proceeds would be used to extend for a few years a program that funds schools in rural counties with land in a national forest, which is not taxable.
The Southern Environmental Law Center vigorously opposed the proposal, which drew swift and stiff opposition from dozens of lawmakers and thousands of citizens. The proposal soon died, but was revived in 2007 with slight changes, only to be met with equally fervent opposition. As of the summer, Congress was considering various legislative proposals to fund rural schools without selling national forest lands.
Acre for acre, the 2006 proposal was deeply skewed against the South, which has relatively little public land, a fast-growing population and increasing demand for backcountry recreation. The US Forest Service Southern Region (from Virginia to Florida and across to Texas) has roughly 13 million acres of national forest, almost 60,000 acres of which were proposed for sale. The region that comprises Oregon and Washington has twice as much national forest, yet just 18,000 acres were proposed for sale.
The proposal disfavored the South financially as well. North Carolina, with a total of 1.25 million acres of national forest, and Oregon, with a total of 15.55 million acres, each had about 10,000 acres proposed for sale. Yet North Carolina would have received just $1 million, while Oregon would get almost $163 million. (See table for more comparisons.)
Regardless of regional inequities, SELC takes the position that selling off America's natural heritage is a fundamentally bad policy. These public lands belong to all citizens, and to all future generations. The Bush Administration shold not to be putting the public's land up for sale to meet its budgetary obligations.
