37 



and disease. In these situations, some timber management is necessary to restore 

 and maintain forest health. 



Environmental documentation and appeals. Most forests have faced escalating 

 costs and delays in sales due to increasingly complex and uncertain environmental 

 requirements. Good land stewardship, of course, requires consideration of other re- 

 sources — wildlife, cultural, archeological, recreational in planning timber sales. 

 However, almost all costs of surveys and analysis for these other resources are 

 borne by the timber program. When sales are held up in a long process of appeals, 

 their costs are increased and revenues delayed. New or changing environmental re- 

 quirements often mean that staff must go back and review or rework completed 

 analyses, thus incurring further costs and delays. 



It is ironic that the same people that appeal and litigate the Forest Service, forc- 

 ing up the cost of preparing timber sales, are also the ones wanting to shut down 

 timber sale programs because they don't make a profit. 



Economies of scale play an important role here. Preservationists have wielded 

 lawsuits and appeals so successfully that the volume of timber sold has fallen to a 

 fraction of what it was a few years ago. At the same time, Forest Service costs have 

 increased as a result of the increased workload from appeals and litigation. No pri- 

 vate company could continue to operate under those circumstances. Our analyses 

 show that, in today's market, most of the targeted forests would be above cost if 

 they were simply able to sell their annual congressional sales targets. 



Noncommercial sales. On many national forests, particularly in the West, most of 

 the timber sold is for personal use, primarily as firewood. These programs, conduct- 

 ed as a public service, produce little revenues to offset program costs. 



The Administration's Proposal Is Bad Economics 



Perhaps the greatest irony with the administration's proposal is the economic 

 havoc that would result if the plan were implemented. As we understand, the Forest 

 Service hopes to save $72 million over the next 4 years by shutting down these 

 timber programs. By doing this over 23,000 direct jobs, $850 million in wages, and 

 $119 million in annual Federal income tax revenues will be lost (Forest Service 

 data). So the Government, by eliminating below-cost timber sales, will lose more 

 income in 1 year than the predicted gains in 4. In addition, local counties will lose 

 $18 million per year in 25-percent fund payments. 



The issue, then, is obviously not one of economics or deficit reduction but rather 

 one of environmental group politics. This becomes especially apparent when one no- 

 tices the absence of discussions on below-cost recreation, below-cost wilderness, 

 below-cost wildlife, and below-cost everything else the Forest Service manages. 



Eliminating Below-Cost Sales is Contrary to the Forest Service's New Ecosystem 

 Management Philosophy 



In a June 4, 1992 letter to the field, Chief Robertson directed the agency toward 

 ecosystem management. This will require an overhaul in the accounting system 

 used by the Forest Service. Both historically and under the current TSPIRS ac- 

 counting system, costs incurred in connection with timber management are fully or 

 substantially charged against the timber program even though the particular activi- 

 ty may be planned to benefit other Forest Service programs, such as wildlife or 

 recreation. The rationale for this is that the timber sale is the dominant activity; 

 any other benefits are incidental, and would not be obtained separate from the 

 timber sale. This rationale depends on the present planning system of allocating 

 separate areas of the forest for separate activities. 



Now, however, the Forest Service is turning to ecosystem management where 

 timber and other resources won't be looked at individually but rather as a cohesive 

 whole. Under this approach, a desired condition for the forest will be determined, 

 and then the forest will be managed as an integrated whole to achieve that condi- 

 tion rather than as separate activity units to achieve specific outputs. Although the 

 concept is still in its infancy, many forest scientists see it as the best way to ensure 

 healthy forests for the future. 



Ecosystem management techniques already are involving timber harvesting as a 

 tool in such environmentally beneficial projects as: 



• watershed restoration in the Pacific Northwest; 



• forest health improvement in the Mountain States; 



• promotion of vigorous young forests in the Lake States and southern Appalach- 

 ia; 



• development of habitat in the South for the endangered red-cockaded woodpeck- 

 er; and 



• pilot land stewardship contracts in the Southwest. 



