Oregon Public Broadcasting

The head of the U.S. Forest Service told a Senate panel Wednesday that the Bush Administration is still interested in extending payments to timber-dependent counties.

Those payments have brought hundreds of millions of dollars to Oregon counties. County leaders are already laying off workers to deal with anticipated budget shortfalls.

Agriculture undersecretary Mark Rey suggested that the President’s past support for the county payments program gave an indication of the future. He acknowledged that the offsets – or funding methods – are the sticking point.

Mark Rey: “I know a lot of people in Oregon and elsewhere are beginning to say ‘well, are they really committed to it?’. Well, we’ve put it in our last three budget proposals. We’ve changed the offsets each time, to try to respond to objections to the offsets. And we’ve continued to work with you for that purpose.”

Rey’s statement was in response to a question from Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, who has been pressing to renew the county payments.

Wyden told Rey that a reassuring word might help a county payment package pass the House.  Efforts have stalled there, in part due to veto threats.