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Forests:
Fire fighting cost-shift

Our Position: oppose
Bill Number: SB 2327
Sponsor: Rep. Susan Morgan (R-Myrtle Creek)
Legislative Session: 2005

Status

HB 2327 passed the House of Representatives on June 30 with a vote of 47 - 12. Voting NO on the House floor were Representatives Brad Avakian, Jeff Barker, Peter Buckley, Jackie Dingfelder, Larry Galizio, Mitch Greenlick, Gary Hansen, Steve March, Jeff Merkley, Diane Rosenbaum, Chip Shields, and Carolyn Tomei.  

Please send these Representatives a 'thank you' note for voting against HB 2327 and standing up for the public interest, taxpayers, and the environment. If your Representative is not in this list of NO votes, please contact them to express your disappointment.

More information

Please contact Ivan Maluski, Oregon Chapter Sierra Club

ivan.maluski@sierraclub.org

503-238-0442, x304

Background

HB 2327 shifts the costs of emergency fire fighting on private timber industry land away from the timber industry and to the taxpaying public. The timber industry is asking the public to pay up to $10 million from Oregon’s General Fund -- reducing much needed funds for Oregon schools, seniors and health care, and potentially affecting funds that could be used for watershed restoration efforts. Another bill, HB 2122, would reduce the forest harvest products tax, which normally pays for fire protection.

The timber industry claims that the public receives benefits from private forest land in their attempt to justify their bill. In reality, private industrial logging practices create costs for the Oregon public and our fish, water and wildlife. Passing on firefighting costs is just another way for the timber industry to externalize its operating costs onto the general public.

The Environmental Protection Agency and Oregon Department of Environmental Quality state that private forest lands managed by the timber industry often violate clean water standards. Fish and wildlife habitat have suffered under large, corporate management as well. Fish and wildlife agencies have found declining numbers of key species such as owls, salmon and murrelets on private lands. And the public’s access to private forest land is declining rapidly as more and more land is closed off behind locked gates and no trespassing signs.  

The Oregon Legislature should use existing revenue sources for emergency fire protection on private forestlands, such as the Forest Products Harvest Tax. Also, $0.99 per thousand board feet of trees cut on private lands currently fund the Oregon Forest Resources Institute (OFRI) to the tune of $7 million. OFRI is a quasi-public agency which has been used to promote the views of the timber industry often through expensive television ads.

Using OFRI funding or the Forest Harvest Products Tax to defray firefighting costs is far more appropriate than a scheme to get the taxpayers to foot the bill.