Politics makes strange bedfellows

Enivironmental, taxpayer and sportsmen groups combine to fight subsidized logging roads in Tongass National Forest

From the Alaska Coalition:

At a time when the government is running huge budget deficits, the Forest Service is wasting $48 million taxpayer dollars each year to subsidize building logging Roads to Nowhere used by the timber industry to clearcut the Tongass — America's Rainforest in Alaska. Taxpayers from Minnesota shouldn't have to pay to destroy the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world. This appalling subsidy can be stopped. Representatives Steve Chabot (R-OH) and Rob Andrews (D-NJ) will be offering an amendment to the FY2007 Department of Interior spending bill to stop more taxpayer subsidized road construction in the Tongass.

From the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW):

CCAGW has long been opposed to taxpayer subsidized roads in our national forests. The Tongass National Forest, in particular, represents what is wrong when the government constructs logging roads that assist timber companies in the cutting and removing of timber. In fiscal 2004, the Forest Service spent more than $48 million to support logging activities in Tongass National Forest yet received only $800,000 in revenue from timber companies. Since 1982, cumulative losses to the Forest Service have reached more than $850 million on Tongass logging.

From Taxpayers for Common Sense:

Every year the U.S. Forest Service wastes tens of millions of taxpayer dollars in congressionally-supported subsidies to private timber companies. Since 1982, the Forest Service has lost over $850 million subsidizing the timber industry in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.1 That equates to an average annual loss of nearly $40 million. It is long past time for the Forest Service to come clean with the American public about how much it truly spends and put a stop to these wasteful subsidies.

From the Federation of Fly Fishers:

American hunters and anglers place a high value on the use and enjoyment of our National Forests. For this reason, the Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF) urges your support of the Chabot/Andrews Amendment to the FY 2006 Interior Appropriations bill. The FFF is pleased to join with members of the Alaska Coalition to support the Chabot/Andrews Amendment. This amendment wisely halts taxpayer subsidies for the construction of logging roads by private companies into the remaining roadless areas of Alaska's magnificent Tongass National Forest.

For more, go here.