26 



provision was "to ensure that the public funds are not invested in 

 growing timber for commercial purposes on areas where the antici- 

 pated economic return is less than the cost of production." That is 

 from the Senate Committee Report. 



Under NFMA the Forest Service is required to develop long- 

 range management plans for each forest. However, despite the 

 widespread belief that Section 6(k) of the law requires forest plans 

 to base their timberland suitability determinations on the results 

 of site-specific economic analysis, the Forest Service regulations 

 that implement the law do not require this to be done. Rather, the 

 forest plans allocate as much land to the suitable timber base as is 

 needed to meet the plans' timber goals, even if land admittedly will 

 be uneconomic for timber production. As a result, millions of acres 

 of economically unsuitable timberlands are classified as suitable in 

 the first generation of forest plans. 



There is a popular misconception that the major factor in below- 

 cost timber sales is the inefficiency of the Forest Service in prepar- 

 ing timber for sale. However, in most cases, the major reason for 

 below-cost timber sales is that much of the timber on national for- 

 ests has a very low commercial value relative to private timber 

 lands. When the National Forest System was created, much of the 

 best timber land in this country was already in private ownership. 

 Today, a considerable volume of national forest timber is located 

 on steep slopes and in remote areas, making access costly and diffi- 

 cult. There are significant cost factors that cannot be done away 

 with through agency cost-cutting measures. 



The fact is that most national forests enjoy a large competitive 

 economic advantage in the value of recreation, wildlife, and scenic 

 beauty they provide over private lands, but little comparative eco- 

 nomic advantage in timber production. 



For years the Forest Service denied that subsidized timber sales 

 occurred. Now, because of the congressionally mandated accounting 

 system — TSPIRS— the myth is destroyed. Yet the agency persists in 

 portraying money-losing sales as profitable by systematically un- 

 derstating the costs of logging and overstating the benefits to wild- 

 life, recreation, and forest protection as a means to justify contin- 

 ued subsidized logging. In reality, subsidized logging does more 

 harm than good to many nontimber forest resources, some of which 

 are irreplaceable. 



The Wilderness Society has studied the Treasury receipts and 

 Treasury expenditures for the Forest Service's timber sale program 

 for fiscal years 1988 through 1992. Using unpublished and pub- 

 lished TSPIRS data and other information available from the 

 Forest Service, we see that 76 national forests across the country 

 have been below cost for the entire 5 years of TSPIRS. 



In Forest Service Region 1, the Northern Rocky Mountain 

 region, 13 of 13 national forests have been below cost in all 5 years. 

 Forest Service Regions 1 and 10 share the distinction for being con- 

 tinuously below cost. 



When all costs are counted in the TSPIRS system, the number of 

 below-cost national forests range from 82 forests in 1988 to a record 

 high of 101 national forests in 1992. In fiscal year 1992, sales on 19 

 national forests made a positive contribution to the Federal Forest 

 Service timber program. If logging in fiscal year 92 had been limit- 



