§544l Implementation measures

Summary

The Secretary must give counties free technical help to write the land-use rules called for under the law. If a county does not get the Commission’s approval for its rule within three years after that help starts, the Secretary must stop helping that county. Certain federal payments for special management areas in Mount Hood and Gifford Pinchot National Forests must be spent so that at least 50 percent goes to public schools in counties that adopted the required implementation measures, and the rest goes to public roads or other public uses in those counties. That 50/50 rule does not apply to payments made at the end of any fiscal year before November 17, 1986, or to counties that do not have an approved land-use ordinance. When the Secretary buys land that was taxable in the five years before purchase and is in a county with an approved ordinance, the Secretary must pay the county each year an amount equal to 1 percent of the land’s fair market value at purchase, but not more than the last full year’s property tax on that land. Those payments end after the eighth full fiscal year after the first payment (with a special rule that payments already made in fiscal year 2000 count toward a total of eight fiscal years). Federal agencies must carry out their duties in the scenic area in a way that matches the law, as the Secretary decides, unless other parts of the law say differently. If the Commission is not created within 15 months after November 17, 1986, or is disbanded, then no new federal spending, financial help, licenses, permits, or permit exemptions may be made for non-urban activities that the Secretary finds are inconsistent with the law’s standards and purposes. “New” spending or permits means those that had no money appropriated or no binding commitment before October 1, 1986; some listed federal payments are not treated as “new.” Even if the Commission does not exist, federal officers (after talking with the Secretary) may still allow certain work, such as maintaining channels and related dredging, repairing (not expanding) essential public roads or facilities, military work needed for national security, and approved projects for wildlife, navigation aids, coastal management, scientific research, emergency life‑saving actions, and nonstructural shoreline stabilization, if those actions fit the law’s standards and purposes. The Director of OMB must annually certify to Congress, starting with fiscal years after September 30, 1987, that agencies followed these rules. Nothing here changes how federal law relates to state or local law unless they directly conflict. Public lands in the scenic area now managed by the Bureau of Land Management are transferred to the Secretary to be run as National Forest lands, subject to existing rights.