The Forest Service budget has roughly a hundred items in it. When I look at it, I compare the receipts and costs of selected resources, look for any dramatic changes in costs or cost trends, and examine any changes in cost trends and the budgetary process.
The 1995 budget included $2.0 billion for national forest operations paid out of tax funds, plus another $420 million paid out of revenues--mostly timber receipts. Just over $300 million were paid to counties in lieu of property taxes. The rest of the budget is split between research, state & private forestry, and international forestry.
Congress' 1996 budget showed a strong bias for commodity resources. Timber and range management budgets were significantly increased. Funding for nearly everything else was reduced, usually by about 10 percent.
The Forest Service proposing to restore some of the cuts. But the agency has a poor record of getting what it wants from Congress in specific line items, other than timber and grazing line items. But it has proven good at padding budgets, especially for timber and grazing, so that its record of both outputs per dollar spent and dollars returned per dollar spent get worse every year.
Some people still say that the Forest Service is the only agency of the federal government that makes more money than it costs. This may have been true for a few years during the 1950s, but it is far from true today. Forest Service cash receipts peaked at $1.7 billion in 1989 and have fallen to just $1 billion in 1995.
The Treasury only keeps a fraction of these receipts: about a billion in 1989, well under $400 million in 1995. The 1989 returns to the Treasury offset a little over half of the Treasury's costs of national forest management; today they cover only a fifth of those costs.
Not all of these receipts will make it to the U.S. Treasury. Four different laws allow the Forest Service to keep an unspecified share of timber receipts to spend on forest management. When timber receipts decline, the Forest Service protects its budget by increasing the share of receipts that it keeps.
Back in the mid-1970s, the Forest Service typically kept only about 15 percent of timber receipts for itself, with the amounts fluctuating between 13 and 17 percent. In 1976, Congress significantly expanded the agency's authority to keep receipts, so by the mid-1980s the share retained by the agency ranged from a quarter to a third of the total.
National forest timber sales fell from around 11 billion board feet through the 1980s to around 3 to 5 billion board feet during the 1990s. The Forest Service responded by increasing the share it keeps from timber sales to more than 50 percent. In 1995, the share was 52 percent; the agency projects it will be 55 percent in 1996 and 1997.
In terms of dollars per thousand board feet of timber cut, the receipts kept by the Forest Service have risen from $8 in 1975 to $25 in 1985 to $90 in 1995. The Forest Service expects to keep $94 per thousand board feet in 1996.
A portion of timber sale receipts are also collected in the form of road construction by the timber purchaser. This is accepted as an in-kind payment. "Purchaser credits," as they are known, have remained roughly proportional to timber volumes, falling from around $100 million per year during the 1980s to around $60 million per year in the 1990s.
Deducting purchaser credits and receipts retained by the Forest Service from total receipts leaves the receipts returned to the U.S. Treasury. These averaged $630 million during the 1980s, reaching an all-time high of $875 million in 1989.
By 1995, they had fallen to under $295 million. Although total receipts are projected to increase in 1996 and 1997, since the agency expects to keep a larger share for itself the returns to the Treasury are expected to fall below $290 million.
The most interesting thing about these direct costs is that they have not declined anywhere near as much as sales. The result is that the costs per thousand board feet have sharply increased. In the late 1980s, the Forest Service spent about $40 per thousand board feet on sales. In the early 1990s, when sales fell by more than half, Congress kept pumping money into the program hoping to get some timber out the other end. So direct sale costs jumped to $120 per thousand board feet.
In 1995, costs fell to $97 per thousand--the first time they were below $100 in four years. The Forest Service projects that they will stay at this level. Congressional memories are short, so the agency will probably get credit for reducing costs rather than blame for more than doubling them from their pre-1990 levels.
Reforestation after timber sales is mostly paid out of some of the receipts retained by the Forest Service. But when initial reforestation attempts fail, second efforts are paid for out of tax dollars. Tax dollars are also often used to reforest after salvage sales. Appropriated reforestation costs totaled $85 million in 1995. This includes $29 million from a so-called "reforestation trust fund." This is not really a trust fund but an earmarking of timber import tariffs to the Forest Service's budget.
Overhead is represented in the Forest Service budget as "general administration." This adds about 15 percent (ranging from 12 to 19 percent in various years) to the agency's budget (not counting items that include their own general administration funds). So timber's share of general administration in 1995 is 15 percent of $181 million (for timber management) plus $53 million (for road construction), which is about $57 million.
Payments to counties are supposed to be 25 percent of most receipts. Since the Forest Service's only really valuable timber is in Oregon, Washington, and California, this formula meant that Pacific Coast counties made out like bandits, with Oregon alone getting 40 percent of all county payments, which is several hundred times what they would get if the lands were taxed the same as private lands. Meanwhile, many if not most counties elsewhere get less than they would if the forests were taxed like private land.
Now that Northwest sales have fallen to very low levels, county payments have declined. This is complicated by the fact that Northwest counties convinced Congress to east the pain of reduced sales by placing floors on payments that step them down over several years. If we just count the 25 percent the counties would get at minimum, the counties' share of 1995 receipts was $163 million. This is down from a high of $340 million in 1989 and $219 million in 1994.
There will always be a debate about what non-direct costs should be assigned to timber. But the table below makes it clear that even a small fraction of the indirect costs counted here will put the entire Forest Service sale program in the red--especially since the returns net of direct costs along are rapidly declining toward zero.
1994 1995 1996 1997
Receipts
Total timber receipts $856 $641 $698 $686
Share kept by Forest Service 436 347 409 395
Purchaser road credits 68 48 62 56
Returned to Treasury 421 294 289 290
Direct timber costs
Timber management 189 181 189 190
Road construction 53 53 63 67
Total direct costs 242 233 252 257
Net to Treasury $179 $61 $37 $33
Indirect timber costs
Overhead 56 57 64 55
Reforestation 62 57 52 52
County payments 219 163 175 170
Total indirect costs $337 $277 $291 $277
Figures
for 1994 and 1995 are final. Figures for 1996 are based on the conference
report of December 12, 1995. Figures for 1997 are the administration's
proposal.
Recreation management costs are significantly higher, rising from under $40 million in 1975 to $100 million in 1985 to more than $220 million in 1995. The agency spends another $35 to $50 million per year on construction and reconstruction of recreation facilities.
The formula also allows the Forest Service to keep half the fees for "range improvements," so the Treasury gets only half--only a quarter after the counties get their 25 percent share.
Total grazing receipts declined from $9.8 million in 1994 to $7.8 million in 1995. The agency projects that they will fall even further to $6.5 million in 1996 and 1997. These declines are due to the fee formula, which reduces fees whenever the price of beef falls or costs of cattle production increase, not to declines in grazing levels, which actually went up slightly in 1995.
Range costs, meanwhile, are rapidly increasing. On the books, 1995 costs of $18.5 million are just a little more than 1994 costs of $16.4 million. But the 1995 costs do not include $15 million reprogrammed to range, mainly to do analyses required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Moreover, for 1996 Congress significantly boosted the Forest Service's range budget to $27 million. This was partly accomplished by some accounting slight-of-hand when the Forest Service rearranged its line items (see pages 16 and 17 of the Spring, 1995, issue of Different Drummer).
This slight-of-hand made it appear that the Forest Service was requesting the same range budget as the previous year when in fact it was seeking a 50 percent increase. Congress obviously fell for it. The Forest Service is asking for a further increase, to $31 million, in 1997. That's quite a bit for a resource that returns less than $2 million per year (after making payments to counties) to the Treasury.
Unfortunately, I have no idea where the minerals receipts go. A large chunk are transferred to the Minerals Management Service, a USDI agency that the Thoreau Institute plans to study this year. Some are retained by the Forest Service. I hope that by next year at this time we will know how much makes it to the U.S. Treasury.
The Forest Service budget as a whole fell by 2.3 percent, while the budget items pertaining to the national forests fell by just 0.7 percent. This suggests that Congress had a goal of not increasing or slightly reducing the overall budget. To achieve this decrease while increasing timber and grazing budgets, nearly all other items were cut around 10 percent. Here is a brief discussion of the items that were cut by more than 10 percent.
To more than offset this increase, Congress reduced the budgets for construction of facilities (buildings, campgrounds, etc.) by 26 percent, trail construction by 38 percent, and construction of roads for recreation and other non-timber purposes by 18 percent.
The Forest Service is asking for a $6 million increase in construction funding for 1997. Two-thirds of this increase would go to timber-related roads.
It is probable that the person who thought this up expected that giving these activities their own line item would underscore their importance and encourage Congress to give them more funds. Fat chance. By divorcing these activities from outputs like board feet of timber or animal unit months of forage, the budget makes these items less important than before.
So it should be no surprise that Congress cut the budget for these items by 13.2 percent--from $150 to $130 million--which is more than any other item except land acquisition and construction. The Forest Service wants most of the money back in 1997, but is unlikely to get it.
In part, Congress is correct: Most of the dollars spent on planning are a complete waste. But inventory is critical to any land or resource management. Monitoring can also be important, although if people had incentives to do a good job we would need to look over their shoulders all the time.
The problem is that the Forest Service is likely to maintain the funding for planning while it cuts budgets for inventory and monitoring. Many forests haven't had a decent timber inventory in decades, and the Forest Service acts as though it is more important to publish its plans on time than to make sure that the data in the plans are accurate.
The program is always under fire by either a budget-cutting administration or members of Congress. It's budget fell from $165 million in 1994 to $154 million in 1995 and then to $138 million in 1996, an 11 percent drop from 1995. The Forest Service is asking for $164 in 1997, but probably will not get it.
Some members of Congress have a theory that they can force agencies to save money by arbitrarily reducing their general administration line items. A more likely effect is that the agencies will simply transfer funds from other line items to cover activities once paid out of general administration.
The Forest Service has told Congress for years that it would be better off providing more money for prescribed fires. This would allow the agency to burn off some of those fuel loads and reduce the costs of fire suppression later. Congress has been reluctant to do so.
In 1980, Congress repealed the law giving the Forest Service a blank check and just appropriated $125 million per year to a fund that would be available for fire suppression until expended. In 1987 and 1988, however, drought conditions over much of the West led to huge fires. The Forest Service habitually spent huge amounts of money suppressing these fires, which left its fire suppression fund with a $500 million deficit.
In 1990, Congress agreed to pay this deficit. But this just left it with the old dilemma: how to pay for fire suppression? In 1995, Congress decided to create a new wildfire management fund and to give that fund about $385 million per year, to be available until expended. The difference between this fund and the previous one is that this money can be used on prescribed burning as well as fire suppression.
There is still a danger that a bad fire year or two could eat up all of this fund, leaving little for prescribed burning or even forcing another Congressional bailout. Prescribed burning may also be controversial in some regions where people worry about air pollution. But there is also a chance that the Forest Service could put a significant dent in the national forest fuel load before the next serious drought.
If the agency is smart, it will invest in prescribed burning primarily along the borders of the national forests, especially near communities and structures. This would create an effective fire break that would protect private lands from fires that start on the national forests. Then national forest wildfires could be allowed to burn up to the firebreaks, reducing even more fuel loads while minimizing suppression costs.
For nearly a decade, the Forest Service has pushed the idea that its budgets should be available until expended. With no time limit on spending the money, managers will be less likely to waste the funds. Congress has agreed to include this in the language for a few line items.
Unfortunately, these are not the line items which will make a large difference. Funds are available until expended for state & private forestry, wildland fire management, construction, and land acquisition. Funds are only available until the end of the fiscal year for research and nearly all national forest management items (timber, recreation, wildlife, etc.).
Adding the words "available until expended" to appropriations language is no panacea. But the fact that Congress won't even make this change for most line items indicates that Congress is still more interested in micromanagement than in letting managers do a good job.
Although Congress cut the budget by a small amount in 1996, it still gives the Forest Service so much money for timber that the agency has learned to pad its timber requests. The long-run result is bad for forests and bad for taxpayers.