The President's FY07 budget includes a proposal to sell hundreds of thousands of acres of national forest land to help make up for a shortfall in rural school funding due to declining timber sales. The money to be raised is a tiny fraction of the money we're pouring into the debacle in Iraq (it's equal to roughly 3 days' worth of warmaking), and could easily be found in other ways. This would affect dozens of states, and Missouri would be one of those most affected, with more than 21,000 acres on the chopping black.

For those already familiar with the proposed sale, you can easily send an editable form letter to the Forest Service, courtesy of the Wilderness Society, or if you want to do it on your own, you can e-mail comments directly to SRS_Land_Sales@fs.fed.us. The deadline for public comment is May 1, 2006, so act now!

Now, for those who may not know the details of the issue, here are a few resources with which to get up to speed:

• Missouri congressional delegation takes stand against Forest Service plan: Kudos to Sens. Kit Bond and Jim Talent, and Reps. Kenny Hulshof, Jo Ann Emerson and Roy Blunt for seeing this turkey of a plan for what it is.
  
• Details of the proposed plan: Fact sheet, list by state and region of how much land would be sold, and related stories.
  
• Forest Service looking beyond timber sales for revenues: The Forest Service has other lousy plans in the works for further commercializing and opening up our national forests to development.
  
• Senators propose alternative to forest sale: Two western senators present a plan that would generate several times more money than the proposed sales--simply by closing a tax loophole on deadbeat government contractors.
  
• Forest Service wasting taxpayers' money: Far from being a responsible steward of our shared resources, the Forest Service is making a disastrous mess of things that is costing us all billions of dollars. Read this to help shed light on why the timber program is a failure.

The national forests of this country belong to all of us--it's not right for the administration to sell them off without our permission, when simple fiscal responsibility would take care of the budget problem. Please make your voice heard--the form letter link above only takes a few seconds to complete--and let them know that our lands aren't for sale.

Labels: Environment, Politics