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Service spends, and how much it takes in. These are 

 arguments based on a brief period of bad markets, which 

 ignore the history of the Tongass timber program. Worst of 

 all, they are misleading, using rhetoric in place of seriou 

 analysis . 



Even the slightest effort penetrates past the simple 

 tallying of balances to the underlying decisions which 

 produced these results. There is a kernel of truth to the 

 complaints which have been made. But the solution is not to 

 rail against the cost of the Tongass timber program or to 

 challenge its viability 



For several years following the precipitous drop in 

 timber demand in 1981 and 1982, timber continued to be 

 prepared on the Tongass as if demand had remained strong. 

 As a result, money was spent before it was necessary to meet 

 demand. At the same time, the timber which did sell 

 received minimum bids because of poor demand for wood 

 products. Both factors combined to cause a significant gap 

 between expenditures and receipts. 



The failure to respond to changes in the timber market 

 was the source of essentially all of the complaints about 

 the timber program. Fortunately, it is fairly easy to 

 correct this problem. That is what Senator Murkowski has 

 done with his bill, which I cosponsored -- a bill which is 

 before this Committee. 



