Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000

SECURE RURAL SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITY SELF-DETERMINATION ACT OF 2000 -- (Senate - February 12, 2007)

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, let me tell my colleague from Oregon that I very much appreciate his comments with respect to the county payments legislation. The top priority--the top priority--for Oregon's congressional delegation in this session is getting this program reauthorized.

I wrote this law in 2000 with Senator Craig because it was my view in 2000 that without this program, Oregon's rural communities would not survive. I am here today to tell the Senate that if this program is not reauthorized, there is a serious question today whether these rural communities will be able to survive. Now, I want to bring the Senate up to date on three developments with respect to the reauthorization of this critically needed program.

The distinguished Senator from Nevada, the majority leader, Mr. Reid, has been the majority leader for just over 1 month.

I have had many conversations with the majority leader about this program. He vacationed in our beautiful State this summer. He saw the importance of our bountiful forests. I explained to him that the Federal Government owns more than half of our State. He has told me that he is determined to work with me until our State gets a fair shake with respect to this critically important program.

Second--and this is something that the distinguished Senator from Montana knows something about--we have a good bipartisan group of Senators on the legislation I have authored to reauthorize the program. Both Senators from Oregon, both Senators from Washington, and both Senators from California, the distinguished Senator from Montana, and the distinguished Senator from Alaska have all joined us in the effort to reauthorize this program.

Third, as the chairman of the Forestry Subcommittee, I would like to announce that the first hearing we are going to have in the Forestry Subcommittee is to reauthorize this program. Because it is so important, because it is a lifeline to rural communities across our State, we are making this the subject of the first hearing. We have pink slips going out now, county commissions trying to make decisions about schools and law enforcement. These programs involved are not extras. They are not the kind of thing that you consider something you would like to have. These are programs that involve law enforcement, that raise the question of whether we are going to have school in our State other than three times a week in some of these rural communities. I am committed to making sure that doesn't happen. Senator Smith is committed to it. The whole Oregon congressional delegation is committed to it.

In Curry County, for example, on the Oregon coast, they are looking at the prospect of laying off all nonessential workers, including patrol officers, some of whom would be left to perform only their mandated correction duties. In a few months, they will have laid off 20 percent of their county workforce. My judgment is--and this comes directly from those folks in Curry County--there is a real question about whether they are going to be able to continue as a county without this essential program.

We have seen similar cuts put on the table all through the rural part of our State. A lot of Senators--I know the Senator from Montana knows a little bit about it--can't identify with something like this. In most of the East, they don't have half of their land in public ownership. They essentially have private property. A piece of private property is sold, revenue is generated, taxes are paid. That is how they pay for services. We have not been able to do that in our State because the Federal Government owns more than half of our land.

People ask: How is it--and Senator Smith has touched on this this afternoon--that Oregon depends on these revenues for essential services? Well, God made a judgment that what we ought to do in Oregon is grow these beautiful trees. And, by God, we delivered. That is what we do. And we do it better than anybody else. So we didn't come up with some arbitrary figure back in 2000 and say, well, let's just give the State of Oregon a whole bunch of money because we decided to exercise raw political muscle. It was essentially based on a formula that is decades old, built around the proposition that where the Federal Government owns most of the land, we ought to make it possible for those communities to get help, at least at that time, through timber receipts. But when the environmental laws changed, suddenly those counties were high and dry.

So I went to the Clinton administration. Frankly, I was pretty blunt. I have been blunt with the Bush administration, but I was even more blunt with the Clinton administration.

I said: You don't pass this program, you might as well not come to our State because you are not going to be able to make a case for cutting off this program when those communities are getting hammered through no fault of their own. They did nothing wrong.

What happened in this country is that values changed. Environmental priorities changed. All of a sudden those counties had nowhere to turn. So you are seeing that in Montana, in Oregon, throughout these small communities.

Senator Smith has seen this as well. You can't go to a small community in rural Oregon, such as John Day, and tell them they ought to set up a biotechnology company in the next few months. They are making a big push right now to diversify and get into other industries. But these resource-dependent communities, communities that are looking at the axe falling on them, not in 6 months, not in a year, but coming up in a matter of weeks, they have nowhere to turn. So we consider ourselves the last line of defense.

What we are asking for is what I and Senator Reid, the majority leader, have been talking about. And that is a fair shake for our State, not a death warrant for rural communities in our State, not a program that, in effect, has them shrivel up and disappear. We want a fair shake.

This is an extraordinarily important issue. I just had a big round of townhall meetings across my State. We are all going home for the recess. I will start another round of those townhall meetings in rural Oregon this weekend. What happens at these meetings is you have law enforcement people. I had Sheriff Mike Winter from southern Oregon--I am sure Senator Smith knows Mike Winter--talking to us about what the cuts would mean in law enforcement in rural areas. We are talking about law enforcement, the fight against methamphetamines, which I know the Senator from Montana knows something about. It is a scourge that is clobbering the whole West. We can't leave our communities defenseless. We can't leave our communities without the resources they need to fight meth and these other critical problems.

I have open meetings, one in every county every year. I am sure the Senator from Montana will be starting something like that. Folks in these rural school districts used to come up and say: Ron, we are not going to have school but for 3 days a week if we don't have this program. So what we are talking about is any serious semblance of public instruction in rural communities in our State. We don't see how we are going to be able to achieve it without this particular program.

The consequences here are very real. The consequences are tragic. This is not a question of the Oregon congressional delegation, Senator Smith and myself, crying wolf and coming out and just being alarmists on the floor of the Senate. This is what we hear from our constituents. I heard it at town meetings a little bit ago, just a little over a week. I am going to hear it again this weekend. Suffice it to say, over 700 counties in 39 States are involved. Many of them are in parts of the country where the Federal Government owns most of the land. That is certainly the case in Oregon where we have many rural communities where significantly over half of the land is owned by the Federal Government.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I wonder if my colleague will yield for a question.

Mr. WYDEN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. SMITH. My colleague is the author of this legislation. As he has worked in the 109th Congress from the minority side, and I worked the majority side, I suppose he found, as I did, that many people said: Well, the cause is just, but just work it out. There weren't a lot of folks who wanted to work it out. Now, as we come to the final business of the last Congress in this Congress, in a congressional resolution, is it not true that we only have this piece of legislation and the emergency supplemental that we have to attach this to? And if we don't, the pink slips are for real?

Mr. WYDEN. The Senator is right with respect to how critical this question is. As he knows, because he and I have made this a top priority now for quite some time, we didn't get a fair shake in the last session of Congress. I put a hold on several appointments from the Bush administration because I wanted to make sure that they got the wake-up call. I lifted that hold and, frankly, I wish I hadn't because I think they have never put the effort into trying to get this warranted program reauthorized. So Senator Smith is correct in terms of saying that this program should have been reauthorized some time ago. He and I have put it at the top of our priority list.

This is not an abstract question. Decisions are being made by rural school officials, by county commissions at this time. They are looking at cuts that are going to affect our ability to protect the communities from serious matters as it relates to criminal justice, to adequate public education. And we are not talking about extras. We are talking about basics, as Sheriff Mike Winter from southwestern Oregon has noted, and local school officials as well. We want to make it clear just what the consequences are going to be.

I mentioned Curry County on the Oregon coast, for example. A number of our other communities--Douglas County, Lane County, in particular--are going to see direct and painful consequences as a result of this program and the failure of this program to be reauthorized. County payments legislation is supported by a diverse coalition. We are pleased to see that this is a top priority of the National Association of Counties. A number of labor organizations have also said that they believe this is critically important.

I will just wrap it up by saying that I believe these cuts in payments to rural counties are going to hit the rural part of my State and rural America like a wrecking ball. They are going to pound these communities. And it doesn't have to happen. Senator Smith has made that point. I have made that point. The whole Oregon congressional delegation, every member of our House delegation, we don't have 50 Members representing us in the House of Representatives like California, but we are going to be heard.

I have been gratified that Senator Reid, our majority leader, has been willing to spend so much time with me. He is a westerner. He knows what the impact is in a public lands State. He was in our State. He saw what the forests mean to us. He is an honorable man and a man of his word. He said he would work with me to make sure that our State gets a fair shake. We are going to make sure that message is heard loudly and clearly when we have the hearing in the Forestry Subcommittee. We will make sure the legislation that the Senator from Montana has joined me on will get a thorough hearing at that particular discussion.

I thank the distinguished Presiding Officer for being a cosponsor of this bill. We are glad to have him in our bipartisan coalition.

I wanted to wrap up by saying I appreciate Senator Smith's remarks here on the floor. He is going to hear from the Oregon congressional delegation and Oregon Senators again and again and again, until this critical program is reauthorized.

I yield the floor.

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