Dear HCN,
Karen Mockler’s article,
“Counties grab for control of national forests’ (HCN, 12/20/99)
alerted me to a pair of bills being debated in Congress. HR 2389,
the “County Schools Funding Revitalization Act” already has passed
the House of Representatives, and its companion piece with the
brotherly name, “Secure Rural Schools and Community Self
Determination Act” (S 1608), is in the
Senate.
The bills are being promoted by the
National Forest Counties and Schools Coalition, a wise-use advocacy
group with “no dues, no office, and no members,” according to a
coalition spokesman. Organizers include Flathead County (Mont.)
commissioner Dale Williams, who compared a forest supervisor to a
Nazi; Montana Wood Products Association’s Cary Hegreberg, who
belittles forest supervisor Gloria Flora’s concern about threats
toward federal officials; and shovel-collector Jim Hurst, who
sympathizes with wannabe anarchists in
Nevada.
All are signatories to a set of “joint
principles’ that support legislation to “Make no changes to the
Agricultural Reapportionment Act of 1908 … specifically no
“decoupling” of payments from actual gross receipts.” Due to
reduced timber harvest in the last decade, schools and counties
which were reimbursed under the 1908 act have received greatly
reduced federal payments. In an earlier bill rejected by the House,
the Forest Service tried to “decouple” the tie between schools and
logging by offering generous compensation to affected schools and
counties out of the Treasury. For educators, it’s a much better
deal than they’ll ever see again under the old 1908 statute, or
under the legislation that passed the House and is sure to create
new controversy and gridlock on our national
forests.
The idea, however, is anathema to the
timber industry. Although “schools don’t need timber, timber needs
schools.” Continuing the link between timber receipts and education
is vital to Big Timber’s rationale of “Clear-cuts for kids,” and
they even duped National Education Association lobbyists to sign
onto their principles.
But there is unrest among
some members of the teachers’ union, and the Montana Education
Association president has written his colleagues in Washington,
D.C., advising NEA leaders to decouple from the wise-use coalition.
Educators should walk out of the wise-use coalition, and align with
their natural allies in government and conservation
groups.
Please urge your U.S. senators to remove
the Title 2 county control clause from S 1608, and ask them to
decouple schools from
timber.
Gene
Sentz
Choteau,
Montana
Gene Sentz is a public
schoolteacher and NEA
member.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline ‘Clear-cuts for kids’.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
