Wyden, Merkley Push For Oregon Counties To Receive Federal Timber Payments

US Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley on Thursday urged federal officials to make much-needed federal timber sales payments as quickly as possible to Oregon counties in need of funding for schools, roads and law enforcement. In letters to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the senators noted that congressional failure to reauthorize Secure Rural Schools (SRS) funding puts a premium on ensuring the federal timber payments are sent in a timely fashion to Oregon counties. Counties no longer receiving an SRS payment as of Jan. 1 will instead receive payment under a federal act that provides them 25 percent of the federal timber sale revenue from national forestlands generated in each county, th  e senators wrote Vilsack. In 2015 when SRS was not reauthorized until after the 25-percent payments were made, the 25-percent payment was $50 million nationwide compared to about $300 million from SRS the previous year. “Without the certainty of SRS payments, schools, libraries and jails close, roads go unpaved and become unsafe, mental and physical health services are scaled back or even ended and fewer and fewer law enforcement officers patrol larger and larger areas,’’ Wyden and Merkley wrote. “We have talked to counties in Oregon experiencing these hardships, which will be made even worse if the remaining 25 percent payments are delayed.”...more

And some want to depend on the feds for the long term  growth and health of their community. They make a grand and reliable business partner, don't they. 

All that collaboration can result in "schools, libraries and jails close, roads go unpaved and become unsafe, mental and physical health services are scaled back or even ended and fewer and fewer law enforcement officers patrol larger and larger areas.’’

What ever the feds giveth, they can taketh, and over time they taketh a helluva lot more than they giveth.

In the case above it was determined by their business partner that a subspecies of owl was more important than all those schools, libraries, roads and jails, and that the health of the owl subspecies took precedence over the health and safety of the citizenry.