Timber! Feds want another $600,000 from NM, citing sequestration

A little more than a week after reporting the Obama administration is taking $26 million from the state’s coffers in mineral extraction, New Mexico Watchdog has learned the feds — citing sequestration — want nearly $600,000 more from timber. In a letter obtained by New Mexico Watchdog, the chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Thomas Tidwell, wrote a letter three weeks ago to 41 governors across the country, including New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, demanding states return funds that were paid to them under the Secure Rural Schools Act from fiscal year 2013.  The price tag for New Mexico amounts to $572,761.76, with Tidwell saying the state has the option of having the amount taken from its federal funding or “we will send you a bill for collection.”  Similar to the justification that came when the U.S. Department of the Interior informed the state that its royalty payments for energy and mineral extractions on federal lands were to be reduced by $26 million, the Forest Service said that it is forced to make the 5.1 percent reductions to states because of “mandated cuts” through the Budget Control Act of 2011, which calls for reducing $85 billion in federal spending. But what makes the Forest Service cuts different is that the federal government under the Obama administration is asking for monies to be returned retroactively...more

The feds don't like sharing revenues with the states and they are using the sequestration as an excuse to hammer them.