USA: US Forest Service, the grinch that “skims” from Christmas

The price of permits to cut down Christmas trees in several Western
national forests is nearly doubling in some cases, but the additional
revenues will not go to local schools or road projects, the
traditional beneficiaries of the timber program. Instead, the National
Forest Service is taking advantage of loopholes in legislation and
keeping most of the money, according to a public-lands watchdog group.
By shifting the Christmas tree program from timber products to
supervision under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act
(FLREA), the Forest Service no longer will have to share a chunk of
the revenue with school districts and county governments.

It boils
down to whether extractive uses, such as tree cutting, can be
reclassified as recreation, said Kitty Benzar, president of the
Western Slope No-Fee Coalition in Durango, Colo. “It’s about greed,”
Miss Benzar said. Recreation fees don’t have to be shared; other fees
do. So everything is being redesignated as recreation, whether it
fits, she said. The coalition is tracking the number of national
forests participating in what she calls a “sleight of hand” to bypass
congressional intent to keep money to which they are not entitled.
“Basically, it’s a skim,” Miss Benzar said. “They need to get a legal
opinion supporting their interpretation, especially considering the
decades-long practice of classifying Christmas trees as part of the
timber program,” she said. “This will especially hit the many counties
in the West that have a majority of their land in national forests,”
she said.http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/22/forest-service-keeps-christmas-tree-cash/

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