It is the beginning of the end of more than a century of overuse, misuse and abuse of national forests.

And it is made possible by a Republican from Iowa, no less.

Is it a dream? No, it’s a bill introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives co-sponsored by Iowa Representative Jim Leach.

The bill is designed to “save taxpayer money, reduce the deficit, cut corporate welfare and protect and restore America’s natural heritage,” according to the bill’s author, Cynthia McKinney (D-Georgia).

The National Forest Protection and Restoration Act of 1997 will do all that — and save trees by eliminating the fiscally wasteful and ecologically destructive commercial logging program on federal public lands.

The bill was introduced this past October and currently is in committee.

For over 100 years, private timber companies have been able to profit from tree harvesting from public forests — lands held in public trust by you and me.

The logging of our national forests has destroyed wildlife habitat and scenic recreational areas and driven populations of rare and endangered species toward extinction.

It is not just the felling of the trees that causes ecological damage. Building roads through our forests to allow access to logging sites erodes soils and destroys streams with excessive sedimentation.

“The government is the only property owner that I know of that pays private parties to deplete its own resources,” said Representative Jim Leach at a press conference in October.

Leach was referring to the the federal subsidies given to the timber industry — $791 million in 1996 alone.

In addition to direct subsidies, the U.S. Forest Service spends almost $1 billion a year on replanting, road building and logging research not paid for by the logging industry.

Leach pledged his support to this bill because he believes people have “an obligation to be good stewards of the land” and that “Congress has an obligation to be fair and reasonable to taxpayers.”

Leach also said Congress needs to do more “common sense things” and that it is “not common sense to pay others to despoil our own resources.”

The Republican from Iowa went on to say the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act would bring “sincerity” to the United States’ forest policy and “good sense to taxpayers.”

“Let me explain what I mean by sincerity. This country, and many in it, for a long time have expressed a great deal of interest in the rain forests in South America — proper interest — but it strikes me as a little bit hollow to express interest for another country’s preservation of its forests if we don’t preserve our own,” Leach explained.

You often hear the argument that commercial logging on public lands is essential to the health of the economy. Despite what some opponents say, the provisions of this bill will not have a substantial negative effect on the logging industry economy.

According to figures compiled by the National Forest Service, the trees harvested from national forests comprise a mere 4 percent of the country’s total annual wood consumption.

In fact, according to the Sierra Club, commercial logging actually reduces the economic — not just the ecological— value of public forests.

The environmental organization says the value of the forest for hunters, anglers and recreationists contributes 37 times more income and 32 times more jobs than logging to the national forest economy.

The bill also makes provisions to facilitate the economic recovery and diversification of communities dependent on the federal logging program.

Subsidies that previously went to private logging will be redirected to worker retraining and development of wood alternatives to help communities adjust to new federal policy.

The bill also calls for restoration of previously logged forests to bring back balance and biodiversity.

Isn’t it nice when two members of Congress — a Democrat and a Republican — work together to save both taxpayers’ dollars and the environment?

It’s about as American as the symbolic pines and tall redwoods of our northwest forests.

---

Jonquil Wegmann is a senior in community and regional planning from Bellevue.