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Senate Dems to move ahead on rural schools in supplemental |
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Senate Democratic leaders plan to offer a floor amendment today to the war supplemental that would devote $5 billion to two grant programs for states and counties.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) filed for cloture on the $121 billion spending bill yesterday. Reid will be joined by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) to offer the amendment today, and a vote is possible by this evening, according to a Wyden aide.
The deal, unveiled last week, would devote $2.8 billion for five years of payments to counties and states under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act and another $1.9 billion to fully fund the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program beginning in fiscal 2008.
While tax offsets would apparently cover the cost, sponsors have been reluctant to elaborate for fear the Bush administration will oppose the bill or attempt to use the offsets elsewhere.
The spending bill already includes $425 million for a one-year extension of the rural school payments, money that would not have to be offset because it is listed as emergency spending.
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey recently said the Bush administration disagrees with the inclusion of spending that is not offset elsewhere. "They're suggesting the failure of Congress to act constitutes an emergency, and we don't agree with that," Rey told E&E Daily last week.
The Bush administration has proposed selling up to 270,000 acres of national forests for $800 million to fund the county payments program, but Rey has maintained the administration is open to other offset proposals.
The original rural schools law was drafted in 2000 to address the dramatic decline in timber sales on federal lands that led to shortfalls for schools, roads and other services, but it expired last fall. Historically, the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management paid counties 25 percent of forest product revenues from federal lands. Oregon counties also receive 50 percent of timber cuts from BLM's Oregon and California grant lands.
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