PRIA, Government Policy, Made Personal

Summary

The Secretary of Agriculture can require anyone who buys timber from national forests to pay extra money on top of the timber price. That money pays for work to help the forest grow back and stay healthy. Examples are planting or supplying young trees, sowing tree seeds, removing unwanted trees or growth, improving the sale area and other renewable resources, helping watersheds and wildlife habitat, fighting insects, disease and noxious weeds, protecting communities, and maintaining forest roads. The work can be done by contracts, timber sales, or cooperative agreements. The deposits go into a special Treasury fund that can be used until it is spent for these purposes. If the Secretary of the Interior asks, the Secretary of Agriculture may provide seedlings or young trees to replant burned areas in national parks. At the end of a fiscal year, any part of that special fund the Secretary decides is more than needed for the listed work (including amounts decided excess before October 1, 2004, but not yet moved) must be transferred to miscellaneous receipts, National Forest Fund only if the Secretary also finds the money won’t be needed for emergency wildfire fighting that year and the transfer amount is larger than any unpaid wildfire-suppression amounts previously taken from the fund.

Title 16, §576b

Conservation, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Secretary of Agriculture may, when in his or her judgment such action will be in the public interest, require any purchaser of national-forest timber to make deposits of money in addition to the payments for the timber, to cover the cost to the United States of (1) planting (including the production or purchase of young trees), (2) sowing with tree seeds (including the collection or purchase of such seeds), (3) cutting, destroying, or otherwise removing undesirable trees or other growth, on the national-forest land cut over by the purchaser, in order to improve the future stand of timber, (4) protecting and improving the future productivity of the renewable resources of the forest land on such sale area, including sale area improvement operations, maintenance and construction, reforestation and wildlife habitat management, or (5) watershed restoration, wildlife habitat improvement, control of insects, disease and noxious weeds, community protection activities, and the maintenance of forest roads, within the Forest Service region in which the timber sale occurred: Provided, That such activities may be performed through the use of contracts, forest product sales, and cooperative agreements. Such deposits shall be covered into the Treasury and shall constitute a special fund, which is appropriated and made available until expended, to cover the cost to the United States of such tree planting, seed sowing, and forest improvement work, as the Secretary of Agriculture may direct. The Secretary of Agriculture is authorized, upon application of the Secretary of the Interior, to furnish seedlings and/or young trees for replanting of burned-over areas in any national park.

(c)Any portion of the balance at the end of a fiscal year in the special fund established pursuant to this section that the Secretary of Agriculture determines to be in excess of the cost of doing work described in subsection (a) (as well as any portion of the balance in the special fund that the Secretary determined, before October 1, 2004, to be excess of the cost of doing work described in subsection (a), but which has not been transferred by that date) shall be transferred to miscellaneous receipts, National Forest Fund, as a National Forest receipt, but only if the Secretary also determines that—

(1)the excess amounts will not be needed for emergency wildfire suppression during the fiscal year in which the transfer would be made; and

(2)the amount to be transferred to miscellaneous receipts, National Forest Fund, exceeds the outstanding balance of unreimbursed funds transferred from the special fund in prior fiscal years for wildfire suppression.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Amendments

2005—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 109–54 added cl. (5). 2004—Pub. L. 108–447, § 318(1), which directed the amendment of this section “by striking ‘The Secretary of Agriculture may, when in his’ and inserting ‘(a) The Secretary of Agriculture may, when in his or her’; ‘(b) Amounts deposited under subsection (a)’ ”, was partially executed by designating existing text as subsec. (a) and substituting “The Secretary of Agriculture may, when in his or her” for “The Secretary of Agriculture may, when in his”. However, the provisions relating to subsec. (b) were not inserted, because of missing directory language. Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 108–447, § 318(2), substituted “may direct. The Secretary of Agriculture” for “may direct: Provided, That any portion of any deposit found to be in excess of the cost of doing said work shall, upon the determination that it is so in excess, be transferred to miscellaneous receipts, forest reserve fund, as a national-forest receipt of the fiscal year in which such transfer is made: Provided further, That the Secretary of Agriculture”. Subsec. (c). Pub. L. 108–447, § 318(3), added subsec. (c). 1976—Pub. L. 94–588 struck out “or” before “(3)” and substituted “, or (4) protecting and improving the future productivity of the renewable resources of the forest land on such sale area, including sale area improvement operations, maintenance and

Construction

, reforestation and wildlife habitat management” for “: Provided, That the total amount so required to be deposited by any purchaser shall not exceed, on an acreage basis, the average cost of planting (including the production or purchase of young trees) other comparable national-forest lands during the previous three years”.

§576b Purchasers of National-forest Timber; Deposits of Money in Addition to Payments for Timber; Use of Deposits; Seedlings and Young Trees for Burned-over Areas in National Parks