Dear Member of Congress:
Taxpayers for Common Sense Action (TCS Action) urges you to support Representative Robert Andrews’ (D-NJ) and Representative Steve Chabot’s (R-OH) amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill to block taxpayer spending on new commercial logging roads in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. Facing a massive federal deficit, every dollar counts. We must take a stand against the Forest Service’s fiscal mismanagement of the Tongass.
The Tongass timber program has been hemorrhaging money—and jobs—for years. Since 1982, the Tongass timber program has lost nearly $1 billion dollars. That equates to an annual average loss of $40 million. Since 1996, timber related employment in the Tongass is down from 1,560 to fewer than 200. Yet the subsidies keep flowing in ever greater amounts. The subsidy per job has now reached more than $200,000.
There are currently over 5,000 miles of road on the Tongass. Only 23 percent of these are open to passenger traffic. According to the Forest Service, these roads are sufficient to meet community connectivity, recreation, and other community needs. The remaining 77 percent exist for timber access and extraction only. Taxpayers are building roads they cannot use in order to shield timber companies from the cost of doing business.
The Forest Service’s response to this growing pattern of fiscal waste is to plan even more roads and spend even more money. If the Forest Service gets its way, taxpayers will continue to lose tens of millions in the Tongass every year.
Considering the Forest Service’s long-term losses taxpayers cannot afford to continue subsidizing Tongass logging roads. TCS Action strongly urges you to support the Andrews/Chabot amendment. For more information, please contact Demian Moore at (202) 546-8500 x118 or Demian@taxpayer.net.
Sincerely,
Ryan Alexander
President
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