Periodically I've blogged on the grim fact that the Bush Administration has repeatedly hung its most faithful supporters out to dry. One of the most spectacular examples is the Forest Service's cynical effort to simultaneously sell out rural schools while selling off recreational lands used by rural communities. The last effort by Forest Service chief Mark Rey to link sales of land in the national forests to paltry one-time funding for rural schools sank like a stone with the Republicans in Congress.
The problem of funding schools in rural areas is real; the amount of property taxes that can be raised is severely limited because the amount of land that can be privately owned is severely limited, as most of the land is owned by the federal government. But the new Congressional leadership has come up with a good and honest idea -- new legislation that would raise billions of dollars in fees from commercial activities on federal lands to extend the Secure Rural Schools grant program for five years. H.R. 3058 has been introduced by Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-WV). The bill would begin with a $520 million payout in FY 2008, declining by 10 percent each year. The sponsors would use the time provided to find a more permanent funding mechanism for rural schools.
In today's fiscal climate, it's hard to find funding for such program fixes, so DeFazio and Rahall's willingness to earmark a significant chunk of the revenue from the national forests for this purpose is a sign of seriousness -- and a huge contrast with Rey's game-playing. One way to pay for the program long-term, of course, would be to stop the current subsidies flowing to timber companies and to prioritize fire prevention in community protection zones instead of wasting billions on futile efforts to throw helicopters at backcountry wildfires. Unfortunately, this Congress doesn't have the partner it needs in the White House to implement that kind of change, but change is desperately needed.
Earlier, Senators from public-lands states led by Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden included a similar funding measure for the schools in a package of tax credits that was supposed to be attached to the Senate energy bill. But when the Republicans -- most prominently those from the very same states that would be impacted -- chose to filibuster the tax sections of the energy bill, the Senate version of the rescue plan for the schools died. Oddly, as far as I can tell, none of the press that have been covering the school-funding dilemma picked up on the fact that Republican Senators from public-lands states voted against the one proposal with a good shot to rescue education in their own rural districts.