WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today criticized the U.S. Forest Service for its ongoing failure to actively manage Alaska’s national forest lands and for breaking a promise made to Alaska over a century ago to support public schools and roads in communities surrounded by tax-exempt federal property.

“The reversion to the old system of paying communities 25 percent of local timber receipts would be OK if the Forest Service followed prudent management practices and actually allowed trees to be harvested, but that hasn’t been the case for decades,” Murkowski said. “This is, unfortunately, a rude awaking for those communities who have been forced to rely on alternative assistance from the federal government to fund local services.”

Murkowski’s comments came Thursday after the Forest Service announced it would make payments under the Twenty-Five Percent Fund Act of 1908 to Tongass and Chugach National Forests’ communities worth a fraction of what they would have received under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination (SRS) Act, which expired last year after Congress failed to find a funding source.

“The SRS program, which was originally designed to be a temporary bridge for timber-dependent economies, had, in recent years, been extended by funding from the Senate and House finance committees.  When that failed to happen last year, the true impact of the devastating decline in the Forest Service’s timber program became clear.” Murkowski said. 

Under that 1908 law, states receive 25 percent of the receipts generated from activities on national forest lands in that state. The Forest Services anemic timber management policies mean that Alaska will receive $535,167 this year. By comparison, Alaska received more than $14 million in 2014 under the secure rural schools formula.

 “The SRS program was originally set up by Washington bureaucrats to mask the loss of economic activity in our forested communities caused by declining timber harvests.” Murkowski said. “It’s clear that the Forest Service can no longer count on those payments to cover its refusal to cut timber. The stark reality is revealed in the numbers and it will be felt in rural communities across the West – and especially in Southeast Alaska.”

“We must return to a policy that allows for sustainable timber harvests and gets our forested communities back to work,” Murkowski said. “The alternative is to allow Alaska to manage its national forested lands.”