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Show tional forests. Although the area of forest land that would be so designated does not make up a majority of all federally owned forest lands, this highly productive part of the total is vital as a source of timber. This is the land that will react most readily to investments in timber management and will be the key source of public timber for industrial uses in the future. Financing Recommendation 29: Federal programs on timber production units should be financed by appropriations from a revolving fund made up of receipts from timber sales on these units. Financing for development and use of public forest lands, other than those classified for timber production as the dominant use, would be by appropriation of funds unrelated to receipts from the sale of timber. On the more productive public forest lands, receipts from timber sales generally exceed the costs of financing not only the administration of timber sales, but the overall level of investments in timber management. This is not true of much of the lower quality forest lands. A revolving-fund method of financing these timber production units would provide the land management agencies with a reasonably assured source of funds to permit long-term investment and management programs; it would assure the industry of a fairly certain continuity of supply; and it would provide Congress and the people of the country with a means of measuring the success of this economic program in economic terms. Such a fund, as envisioned by the Commission, would not bypass the congressional appropriation process. We propose that no money would be available to the agencies unless appropriated, even though the money came from the production fund. Funds for timber production on other forested public lands should be provided by direct appropriation from the Treasury as justified. Back-door financing, i.e., payments that do not go through the appropriation process, of timber production programs should be ended, whether in the form of purchaser-built access roads, reforestation payments under the Knutson-Vandenberg Act,5 or any other form of indirect appropriation. When timber is sold from public lands, its full value should be collected by the United States and deposited either in the timber production fund or the Treasury. The Federal timber corporation or division we recommend be established within the administering 16U.S.C. §576 (1964). 95 |