If legislation has enough support to pass the U.S. House of Representatives by a 399-5 margin, it probably should not have to wait six months for a vote.
But such is the case of the Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act, which finally was brought to a vote Wednesday in the House long after being passed by the Senate through a voice vote. The act provides an essential lifeline for schools in rural communities across Southwest Washington.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, co-sponsored the House version of the bill and then repeatedly urged House leadership to consider the version that passed the Senate. Its ultimate passage did little to assuage her frustration.
“Candidly, the only reason it took this long is because way too many folks in D.C. have been blissfully ignorant about how disastrous the lapse of SRS has been for timber communities in Southwest Washington and across the West,” Perez wrote in a statement. “Schools have closed up, teachers have been laid off, and our kids have been left footing the bill for Congress’s neglect. My colleagues need to wake up and see that their blind spots have massive consequences for the American people.”
Instead of addressing the Secure Rural Schools Act, the House spent the first half of this year passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which slashes funding for Medicaid and food assistance while still significantly increasing the national debt. That legislation calls for an increase in federal logging, but all the funds will go to the federal government, rather than the counties who decades ago received revenue from the harvests. In the process, Congress has reneged on promises it made decades ago.
In 2000, led by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Congress implemented the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, providing payments to timber counties that had been devastated by a downturn in the industry. Since then, as The Columbian has explained editorially: “The federal government has limited the revenue-producing harvest of timber, telling counties it will pay them subsidies to not cut down trees — until it doesn’t pay them.”
The need is evident. In the 1970s, Skamania County harvested as much as 399 million board feet of timber in a year; by 2000, after a series of harvest-suppressing federal policies, Skamania County felled 26 million board feet — a decline of 93 percent. That had a dire impact on the local economy and on funding for schools and other services. According to Perez’s office, the Secure Rural Schools Act has provided $7 billion in payments to more than 700 counties and 4,400 school districts across 40 states since its enactment.
By allowing the legislation to lapse, Congress callously demonstrated little concern for the needs of rural counties such as Skamania, Lewis and Cowlitz. In one example of the impact, Wind River Middle School in Carson was shuttered this year because of a lack of funding. “The Secure Rural Schools program is absolutely critical, and the passage of this legislation is beyond overdue,” Perez said.
While renewal of the act is critical, so is a long-term plan that does not leave rural counties beholden to the whims of Congress. Nearly 80 percent of Skamania County is owned by the federal government, primarily in the form of Gifford Pinchot National Forest; if logging is to increase in the region, local residents should reap the bulk of the benefits.
But for now, Congress has managed to reach the minimum level of support for rural counties. It is long overdue.
