County Elections for Fiscal Year 2021 Under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 3706. Under longtime Federal law, counties located within the National Forest System have received a share of revenues generated through the sale of timber harvested from those Federal lands.

This revenue has been critical for forested counties to support schools, roads, law enforcement, search-and-rescue operations, and other local activities that benefit both our forests and rural communities.

However, with the sharp decline in timber harvesting across the National Forest System since the early 1990s, rural counties have seen revenues for schools and other important local services plummet as a result.

To offset this lost revenue, Congress created the Secure Rural Schools program in 2000 to provide additional funding to participating counties based on their average historical timber payments.

In my own district in north Florida, Putnam County and Marion County have received a combined total of more than $624,000 through the Secure Rural Schools program, thanks to the sale of timber harvested out of the Ocala National Forest.

In rural counties like Putnam, this funding provides support for the county's schools, roads, and other critical services. It is no different in Marion County.

The recent infrastructure bill, signed into law this past November, reauthorized the Secure Rural Schools for the next 3 years. However, due to a drafting error, this reauthorization did not lock in the payment allocations that participating counties last elected in 2013.

Consequently, payments for this spring will revert to their default levels in permanent law. This means that county allocations will revert to 80 percent for Title I, 20 percent for Title II, and zero percent for Title III.

To correct this problem, S. 3706 will lock in the 2013 elections for the coming year. In doing so, the bill will provide certainty and consistency for county payments that will be made in the coming months.

Fundamental errors like this demonstrate how flawed and rushed the process was to pass the infrastructure bill this last year. It also demonstrates the need for committee consideration and why committees should not be bypassed before bringing a bill to the floor.

However, given the great importance of county payments to both forested counties and rural school districts around the Nation, I support this commonsense technical fix and urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

As we continue to consider how to best steward our national forests and support forested communities, I would like to add that increasing timber harvesting across the National Forest System will better support these counties and reduce the need for this program in the long run.

Regardless of what the critics say, timber harvesting will encourage forest health and will help prevent the devastating wildfires that have torn through America's forests in recent years. Our forests are an important pillar for our rural economies and provide much-needed revenue to our local counties and schools, like those in my own district.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source