Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. BENTZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 356, the Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act of 2025.

Mr. Speaker, in 1990, the spotted owl was listed under the Endangered Species Act as a threatened species. Almost immediately, timber production from Federal forests in the Western United States plummeted by 80 percent.

The economic and societal costs of timber-dependent States and their timber-reliant counties was appalling. Demand for SNAP and Medicaid shot up. Alcoholism and meth addictions became routine. County tax revenues were decimated.

A belated but needed response was the Secure Rural Schools Act first passed in 2000, 10 years after the listing of the owl. This law, and the funding it provides, was designed to partially offset the massive decline in Federal timber revenue. It provides a modest amount of funding for critical services, including: infrastructure maintenance, search and rescue, fire prevention, and, most importantly, money for children's education.

As this chart shows, all of those billions did nothing to help recover the owl. The population has declined from 1,200 pairs in 1980 to around 200 pairs today. When society enacts laws that seemingly benefit the broader public but end up harming small communities, society must assume responsibility for that harm. That is what this bill partially accomplishes.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues. I thank the leaders of the committees that helped put this bill together. I thank Speaker Johnson for this bill and the funding my counties so desperately need. I urge my colleagues to support S. 356.

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