Offshore Drilling Fees Pay For New National Forest Lands

Offshore drilling fees are financing the purchase of $41.6 million worth of new national forest lands in 15 states.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Thursday the 28 different purchases from North Carolina to Oregon will protect clean water and fish and wildlife habitat, absorb private inholdings within wilderness areas, and support outdoor recreation spending that contributes $14.5 billion annually to the economy.

The purchases from willing sellers represent about 20,000 acres, which were chosen from 68 applications.

The money comes from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, created in 1964. Congress taps mitigation fees paid by companies drilling for offshore oil and gas to finance the fund year to year. The fund is capped at $900 million a year. Other federal agencies also use it.

Projects are typically proposed by local organizations and evaluated by the U.S. Forest Service. Purchases often are arranged with help from organizations like the Trust for Public Lands and Nature conservancy.

In California, Trust for Public Lands arranged the purchase of the Fleming Ranch for $1.5 million to add to the San Bernardino National Forest.

The 1,288 acres has been used as a retreat by the Fleming family since the early 1900s, and is surrounded by the national forest, said Brent Handley, who oversees acquisitions for the trust. The property abuts the Pacific Crest Trail and the San Jacinto Wilderness, and is covered with oak, pine and Douglas fir. The Forest Service said it planned to do thinning projects to reduce fire danger and promote carbon sequestration in the trees.

The fund is paying $1.4 million to complete the purchase of 1,481 acres previously marketed for vacation home sites along the Imnaha River in northeastern Oregon and add them to the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest.

The transaction completes the sale to the Forest Service of 6,695 acres the Nature Conservancy bought in 2008 from the Gazelle Land and Timber Co., said conservancy spokesman Stephen Anderson. Since 2008, the land has been open to the public for fishing along the Imnaha River, and they accounted for 35 percent of the spring chinook caught in the river in 2009.

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Comments

[roberta4343]

10:37 AM on 04/25/2012

these lands from my understanding were to be kept from all development hence why they were donated, stolen ooh sorry acquired, etc to protect wildlands so we have places to visit and enjoy all the wonders of them. but was it really a bait and switch tactic? get teh lands out of individually owned hands so corporations can get the resources there cheap without the costs of actual ownership while gov gives them subsides to boot? we can't have those individual land owners proftiting from their own resources wouldn't be good for our stock prices so say congress, corp owners etc. the profits would all go to one individual or one small family. can't have that. so we must demonize all those greedy private property owners so people will hate them and vote against these greedy private property owners rights in the name of saving planet earth.

rose

[PlayTOE]

01:16 AM on 04/10/2012

Flimflam and a scam.
The fees go into general revenue, the cost of the forest comes out of general revenue.
Pretending the forest would not exist without the drills is bogus double talk for the weak minded.

[Cody30]

09:22 PM on 04/06/2012

The rape of our land by business continues.Pathetic.This country is just pathetic anymore.

[vakh]

10:04 PM on 04/06/2012

OUR land?????

[sheila]

12:43 PM on 04/09/2012

who do you think owns the offshore areas where the drilling is happening? Chevron?

[FreeHat]

05:18 AM on 04/07/2012

Did you read the article?

[D-Driller]

03:42 PM on 04/06/2012

Oil and gas revenue is going to buy woods... Great... That's govenrment logic - every government's got it... How about we use oil and gas revenue for research into renewable energy? Let the old pay for the new? That makes too much sense. Instead, we buy woods at a time when we are broke, unemployed, and have fallen behind in our quest for new energy resources.

[Linus521]

12:55 PM on 04/08/2012

The entire world is killing the woods for the new, clean energy resources! Nothing is as vital to the continued existence of mankind and all life as conserving our terrestrial ecosystems or woods! Do we kill the living, life giving, physical body of Earth for new energy, like destroying our fragile desert ecosystems and their strands in the web of all life or plant and animal biodiversity for dead as Mars windmills and solar panels?

While our terrestrial ecosystems, like boreal and forested "woods", grasslands, wetlands, rivers, chaparral and oak woodland, cover only 30% of the Earth's surface, they support the vast majority of all life on the Earth, including man's. They are the eco-nomy of all life.

Ecosystems release oxygen, naturally regulate and moderate the climate, balance the gaseous composition of the atmosphere and are the natural sequestration of the heat trapping gases, provide the entirety of Earth's biogeochemistry, the nitrogen cycle and the hydrological system while purifying the air and water, the creation of the soil and water, and all integrated ecosystems create the life zone of Earth, her biosphere/ecosphere to name a short life of ecosystems' "life-supporting services".

Trees and plants release oxygen and exhale cooling water vapor that cools the soil, the leaves and the surrounding area. Trees and plants also shelter the Earth from the heat of the sun, and deforestation for windmills and solar panels heats up and dries out the climate.

[altohone]

03:21 PM on 04/06/2012

40 purchases going unfunded is sad. Less than five percent of the fund going to protect land is meager.

With willing sellers applying and being denied I have to wonder what the public may be losing access to.

[sheila]

12:44 PM on 04/09/2012

plus, wth with capping mitigation fees at $900 million/year? that is less than any single oil company makes in a week!

[personal beliefs]

04:56 PM on 04/09/2012

stop typing and walk away please.

[Linus521]

02:43 PM on 04/06/2012

Anything that preserves and conserves our Earth's natural and wild ecosystems conserves mankind's very own "life-supporting services", like oxygen releasing, the atmosphere and the biosphere and our natural resources or ecosystems's "goods" that fuel the financial economy and drive civilization.

Saving ecosystems, saves man's very existence, and all the reasons Earth supports all life.

[niko73]

01:39 PM on 04/06/2012

Glad to see our offshore oil and gas revenues are being put to good use. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is a great program. It's been used to purchase $40 million worth of conservation easements and properties in my neck of the woods on the Snake River in Idaho. These lands are protected from development in perpetuity. Baggers hate it as it takes lands out of private ownership, so that’s another reason to support it.

[vakh]

10:07 PM on 04/06/2012

Whats a bagger,anyone who doesnt agree with you?
Oh well.
Anyone who lives with snakes in Idaho cant be all there.

[niko73]

12:12 PM on 04/07/2012

It's common knowledge the Tea Party hates the federal government, vakh. I mean come on, do you live in a cave? They hate public land too and think it should be turned over to the states. Since you've never hear of Idaho maybe you don't know what's going on in conservative states in the west, but if that's the case, just use Google. Here's a tip, you can start with Rand Paul's budget who wants to sell off millions of acres of public land:

http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/03/21/449046/gop-budget-calls-for-fire-sale-of-public-lands-while-preserving-40-billion-in-tax-breaks-to-big-oil/?mobile=nc

So, is this not in Paul's budget, or is Rand Paul not a member of the Tea Party? Sure sounds to me like my statement was true, eh? Or do you have some knowledge to the contrary you'd like to drop?

[Linus521]

01:44 AM on 04/09/2012

Are you a snake phobic? Then you must love rodents and the plague! Snakes are Earth's finest rodent controllers as their slender bodies are ideal for slithering into a narrow as a snake, rodent den. I guess you also love the plague and a plethora of snake phobic disease pandemics. Don't ever think, any human can out-think the Earth's engineering of all life on the Earth.

Man may think he is more conscious and cognizant that Earth, but he can't even begin. As far as Earth's thinking, man is thousands of years behind the Dark Ages. Snakes aren't about the Garden of Eden but of everything that is a living, life giving Earth or all the reasons mankind breathes.