Urges Congress to pass legislation to reauthorize and extend Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 through federal fiscal year 2016 and to fund Act with mandatory, continuing appropriation.


 
 
 
     74th OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2007 Regular Session
 
NOTE:  Matter within  { +  braces and plus signs + } in an
amended section is new. Matter within  { -  braces and minus
signs - } is existing law to be omitted. New sections are within
 { +  braces and plus signs + } .
 
 LC 2600
 
                     House Joint Memorial 5
 
Sponsored by Representatives HUNT, SCOTT, Senators BROWN,
  FERRIOLI
 
 
                             SUMMARY
 
The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the
measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject to
consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor's
brief statement of the essential features of the measure as
introduced.
 
  Urges Congress to pass legislation to reauthorize and extend
Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000
through federal fiscal year 2016 and to fund Act with mandatory,
continuing appropriation.
 
                         JOINT MEMORIAL
To the President of the United States and the Senate and the
  House of Representatives of the United States of America, in
  Congress assembled:
  We, your memorialists, the Seventy-fourth Legislative Assembly
of the State of Oregon, in legislative session assembled,
respectfully represent as follows:
  Whereas the National Forest System, managed by the Forest
Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, was
established in 1907 and has grown to include approximately
192,000,000 acres of federal lands, of which more than 15,000,000
acres are in Oregon; and
  Whereas the revested Oregon and California Railroad ('O & C')
grant lands and the reconveyed Coos Bay Wagon Road grant lands,
which are managed predominantly by the Bureau of Land Management,
were once in private ownership but were returned to federal
ownership in 1916 and 1919 and now comprise approximately
2,600,000 acres of federal lands, all of which are in Oregon; and
  Whereas Congress recognized that, by its decision to secure
these lands in federal ownership, the counties across the United
States where these lands are situated, of which 33 counties are
located in Oregon, would be deprived of opportunities for
economic development and of tax revenues they would otherwise
receive if the lands were held in private ownership; and
  Whereas these same counties have expended public funds year
after year to provide services such as road construction and
maintenance, search and rescue, law enforcement, waste removal
and fire protection that directly benefit these federal lands and
the people who use these lands; and
  Whereas to accord a measure of compensation to these affected
counties for the critical services they provide to county
residents and to visitors to these federal lands and for the lost
economic opportunities stemming from federal ownership as
compared to private ownership, Congress determined that the
federal government should share with these counties a portion of
the revenues the United States receives from these federal lands;
and
  Whereas Congress enacted in 1908 and subsequently amended a law
that requires that 25 percent of the revenues derived from the
National Forest System lands be paid to the states for use by
counties where the lands are situated for the benefit of public
schools and roads; and
  Whereas Congress enacted in 1937 and subsequently amended the O
& C Act (50 Stat. 874; 43 U.S.C. 1181 et seq.), which requires
that revenues derived from the O & C grant lands and the Coos Bay
Wagon Road grant lands be shared with the counties in which those
lands are situated and be used for a broad range of essential
public services as other county funds are used; and
  Whereas Oregon counties dependent on and supportive of these
federal lands received and relied on shared revenues from these
lands for many decades to provide essential funding for schools,
road maintenance and other critical public services; and
  Whereas in recent years, the principal source of these
revenues, federal timber sales, has been sharply curtailed, and
as the volume of timber sold annually from the federal lands in
Oregon has decreased substantially, so too have the revenues
shared with the affected counties, adversely affecting funding
for education, road maintenance and other public programs and
services; and
  Whereas in the Secure Rural Schools and Community
Self-Determination Act of 2000, Congress recognized this trend
and temporarily mitigated the adverse consequences by providing
annual safety-net payments through 2006 to counties across the
United States, including all counties in Oregon that
traditionally shared in timber receipts from national forest
lands, O & C grant lands and Coos Bay Wagon Road grant lands; and
  Whereas the authority for these safety-net payments expired in
2006; and
  Whereas, without these safety-net payments, revenue sharing is
based only on actual federal timber receipts, and Oregon will
lose more than $230 million per year in payments for schools and
counties under Titles I and III of the Secure Rural Schools and
Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, with associated losses
of essential programs and services and thousands of jobs in both
the government and private sectors, and Oregon will lose an
additional $26 million per year that is currently spent by
counties on special projects under Title II of the Secure Rural
Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, for a total
loss of more than $512 million per biennium, most of which is
spent on programs and services that the state cannot replace; and
  Whereas there is a need to maintain funding for education, road
maintenance and other public services through predictable
payments to the affected counties, as well as job creation in
those counties and other opportunities associated with
restoration, maintenance and stewardship of federal lands
available under the Secure Rural Schools and Community
Self-Determination Act of 2000; now, therefore,
Be It Resolved by the Legislative Assembly of the State of
  Oregon:
  That we, the members of the Seventy-fourth Legislative
Assembly, respectfully urge the Congress of the United States to
pass the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination
Reauthorization Act of 2007 that will reauthorize and extend the
Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000
(P.L. 106-393) for an additional seven-year period through
federal fiscal year 2016, and that the Act be continued in its
present form and be funded through a mandatory, continuing
appropriation; and be it further
  Resolved, That a copy of this memorial shall be sent to the
President of the United States, to the Senate Majority Leader and
 
the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to each member of
the Oregon Congressional Delegation.
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