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Conservation, Fiscal Responsibility Victory with Tongass Amendment

Edited by Alan Gray, NewsBlaze

House passage of a bipartisan amendment blocking subsidies for new Tongass National Forest logging roads was a victory for conservation and fiscal responsibility, Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP) said.

"For too long, American taxpayers have been digging deeply to subsidize logging roads and timber sales that are both uneconomical and harmful to the spectacular natural resources in the Tongass," REP Government Affairs Director David Jenkins said. "The amendment reflects true conservative values of good stewardship of our natural heritage and sound management of the public's money."

Since 1982, the U.S. Forest Service has spent three quarters of a billion dollars subsidizing Tongass logging roads and timber sales. "The Tongass timber program is socialist economics at its worst, a subsidy on top of a subsidy. The Forest Service builds logging roads it cannot afford for timber sales that don't pay their own way," REP Policy Director Jim DiPeso said. "For every job directly supported by Tongass timber sales, taxpayers fork over nearly $170,000. In addition, the maintenance backlog on existing Tongass roads exceeds $100 million. The nation cannot afford such wasteful extravagance," DiPeso said.

Clear-cut logging of old-growth forests degrades the one-of-a-kind natural heritage of the Tongass, a sportsman's paradise first protected by President Theodore Roosevelt. Logging roads and clearcuts damage wildlife habitat and pour harmful silt into fish-bearing streams.

The Tongass supports tourism and seafood processing industries that will be far more durable mainstays of southeast Alaska's economy than cutting old growth trees and shipping raw logs out of the country.

"It makes far more sense to manage the Tongass as an asset that will attract recreation dollars, produce seafood, and support an economically rational, locally based wood products industry for the long term. Passage of the amendment is a first step towards better management of America's largest national forest," Jenkins said.

REP thanks Congressman Steve Chabot (R-OH) for co-sponsoring the amendment, and the 67 other Republican congressmen who voted for its passage.

Republicans voting for the amendment included:

Todd Akin (MO), J. Gresham Barrett (SC), Roscoe Bartlett (MD), Charles Bass (NH), Judy Biggert (IL), Sherwood Boehlert (NY), Jo Bonner (AL), Jeb Bradley (NH), John Campbell (CA), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Michael Castle (DE), Steve Chabot (OH), Howard Coble (NC), Jo Ann Davis (VA), Tom Davis (VA), Charles Dent (PA), Phil English (PA), Michael Ferguson (NJ), Michael Fitzpatrick (PA), Jeff Fortenberry (NE), Virginia Foxx (NC), Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ), Scott Garrett (NJ), Jim Gerlach (PA), Paul Gillmor (OH), Mark Green (WI), Melissa Hart (PA), Jeb Hensarling (TX), Henry Hyde (IL), Bob Inglis (SC), Nancy Johnson (CT), Timothy Johnson (IL), Walter Jones (NC), Sue W. Kelly (NY), Mark Kirk (IL), Randy Kuhl (NY), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), Michael McCaul (TX), Candice Miller (MI), Tim Murphy (PA), Ron Paul (TX), Thomas Petri (WI), Charles Pickering (MS), Joe Pitts (PA), Todd Platts (PA), Ted Poe (TX), David Price (GA), Deborah Pryce (OH), Jim Ramstad (MN), Dave Reichert (WA), Dana Rohrabacher (CA), Ed Royce (CA), Paul Ryan (WI), Jim Saxton (NJ), F. James Sensenbrenner (WI), Clay Shaw (FL), Christopher Shays (CT), Rob Simmons (CT), Christopher Smith (NJ), Lamar Smith (TX), John Sweeney (NY), Lee Terry (NE), Patrick Tiberi (OH), Fred Upton (MI), Curt Weldon (PA), Ed Whitfield (KY), Frank Wolf (VA), C.W. Bill Young (FL).

Source: Republicans for Environmental Protection

alan@newsblaze.com