Hastings sets new date for hearing into county payments controversy

E&E News
By Phil Taylor
January 8, 2014

House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) next week will take another shot at grilling the Obama administration over its decision last year to sequester payments to timbered counties.

Hastings yesterday announced he has rescheduled a hearing for next Tuesday to discuss the Forest Service's decision to retroactively sequester about $18 million in Secure Rural Schools payments.

The rural schools program since 2000 has compensated counties that experienced a significant reduction in federal timber harvests and accompanying revenues as protections were strengthened for endangered species.

The Forest Service in early 2013 disbursed the first phase of its SRS funds in full, but later informed governors that some of the money must be returned after Congress failed to avert the across-the-board cuts known as the sequester.

The hearing is titled "Oversight of the Obama Administration's Questionable Application of Sequestration to the Secure Rural Schools Program and the Costs to States, Local Economies, and Rural School Children."

Hastings had previously invited Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell to testify Nov. 20, but postponed the hearing to give the agencies more time to respond to subpoenas that Hastings issued in September.

Since then, both OMB and USDA have provided several document productions to the committee, though they have not been made available to the public.

Hastings said significant questions remain over the decision to apply the 2013 sequester to SRS funds that were approved in 2012, as well as whether 2014 SRS funds will be sequestered.

He invited Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell, USDA General Counsel Ramona Romero and OMB Deputy Director for Budget Brian Deese to testify at Tuesday's hearing.

"I continue to be disappointed by the Obama Administration's lack of transparency on this issue," Hastings said yesterday in a statement. "I hope these witnesses, who were directly involved in the decision to retroactively subject Secure Rural School funds to the sequester, can provide answers and clarity on how and why this decision was made, why they refuse to provide all requested documents, and what will happen with these funds moving forward."

A Forest Service spokesman said the agency is still confirming whom it will send to testify but that sequestration will not affect the distribution of SRS funding in 2014.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), the committee's ranking member, in late December said the indication that sequestration will not affect SRS this year is "good news for rural Oregon counties struggling to keep deputies on the roads and criminals in jail."

The 2013 sequestration cost Oregon communities $4 million, hampering their ability to create jobs and fund forest restoration projects, DeFazio said.

SRS was extended for one additional year in September when Congress passed an unrelated bill extending the life of the federal helium reserve.

But the roughly $270 million in payments to be distributed this year is 5 percent less than the 2013 amount, the latest in a string of 5 percent reductions to the SRS program.