Continuing Resolution

CONTINUING RESOLUTION -- (Senate - February 12, 2007)

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SMITH. I will yield.

Mr. WYDEN. Through the Chair, I would like to pose a couple of questions to my colleague making an important speech.

I have been attending a lot of town meetings across the State, and I know my colleague is attending some as well. What is your sense of how dire the situation is at home? When I talk to people, you get the sense this is a real lifeline, and I think it would be helpful if you could lay out exactly that sense of urgency you are picking up at home.

Mr. SMITH. My response is the same as the Senator's. It is a sense of abandonment, a sense of betrayal, a sense that the Federal Government made a deal, changed the terms, and now is welching on the deal.

That is why I am here giving the history of this State, trying to share with my colleagues some of the feeling, the history, the blood, sweat, and tears that went into building Oregon and why the Federal Government needs to be the protagonist for Oregon again, not the antagonist.

So that would be my answer. They feel like the Federal Government gave its word and needs to keep it.

Mr. WYDEN. Again, through the Chair, Mr. President, would it be my colleague's sense that at home the kinds of services that are on the line are not exactly what the people call the extras? We are talking about law enforcement. We are talking about schools.

I know the Senator shares a long friendship with Sheriff Mike Winters, for example, of southern Oregon, and he has told me the kinds of cutbacks we have seen in law enforcement are extraordinary, such as involving the effort to fight methamphetamines.

What is your sense of the kinds of services we would see go by the boards if this program is not sustained?

Mr. SMITH. Well, Senator, I have spoken to it at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of this, the kinds of things you are asking, the kinds of services that will be jeopardized or the kinds of services every American citizen expects local communities to provide. Most communities provide them through property taxes, local levies of some kind that keep our teachers, our policemen, our roads paved, health services, and more. These are the kinds of things which are the cornerstone of what we would call ``civilization' in rural places.

It is that and more. We could go looking at program after program that, if the Federal Government welches on its bargain, are the kinds of services that will be lost to Oregon because Oregon is over half owned by the Federal Government. It is real simple. Time is up, and the deal needs to be kept.

Mr. WYDEN. Continuing through the Chair, Mr. President, isn't it correct, I ask my colleague, that members of our delegation, of both political parties, have suggested alternatives for funding this program? For example, our whole delegation to a person was very troubled about this idea of selling off our treasures because not only was that not morally right, clearly it would have no prospect whatever of passing in the Senate. So I know our colleague in the other body who represents the eastern part of our State had some good ideas, and our colleague in the other body from southwestern Oregon had some good ideas. It seems to me--and I think it would be helpful if you could bring the Senate up to date--that both Democrats and Republicans have been trying to work in good faith for ideas that would responsibly fund this program. I think it would be helpful to have my colleague's reaction on that.

Mr. SMITH. The Senator is exactly right. There has been virtually nothing taken off the table. The administration made a proposal for funding this that had difficulties with our delegation, in selling off public lands or other forest land. To me, the offset ought to be the word of the United States, and ultimately the funding source is really the American Treasury because the American Treasury gains so much from Oregon, owns over half of Oregon, and contributes 7 percent to its local governments. So you are absolutely right. There have been many suggestions made. I have supported virtually all of them to try to break through this logjam that we find in Congress. It has been a labor of the greatest frustration for this Senator, and I know for you.

Now we have traded sides as to who is in the majority and who is in the minority. My recourse in the minority is to do what I am doing, and that is to look for every opportunity I can to speak for Oregon, to slow down the Federal Government if necessary to get the Federal Government to understand its obligation.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, one last question, if I might, for my colleague. I appreciate his point with respect to the alternatives because the administration offered a proposal, a selloff of national treasures. I and others thought that was wrong. We went to work. Our colleagues came up with alternatives. Senator Baucus and I found an example in an area where Government contractors were not paying taxes in a prompt way. There were questions about whether it made sense, at least in the administration. Then they went off and took the revenues.

I think your point about how Democrats and Republicans have brought alternatives with respect to how to pay for this program in the Congress is an important one.

The last one I would like to have you lay out for the Senate is that I want Senators to know that this is not some exercise on our part, in terms of just plucking an arbitrary figure out of the air and saying: By God, this is the money that we want for our State. As I understand the presentation of the Senator, you are trying to lay out the history.

Mr. SMITH. I am.

Mr. WYDEN. The history goes back to the beginning of the last century, essentially. Because the Federal Government owns more than half of our land, we historically received payments for essential services--schools, police and the like--that were based on timber receipts. Now that the environmental laws have changed, those funds are not there.

So, as I understand it, the presentation that my colleague is making today is based on the idea that this is not about Oregon's seeking some kind of arbitrary figure that we basically would like to offer up as kind of a wish list or to try to get through because we will try to bull it through, but that it is really based on history. It is based on a historical formula that stems from the fact that the Federal Government owns most of the land. Is that essentially the kind of historical viewpoint that my colleague is trying to bring to the Senate?

Mr. SMITH. Absolutely. I will be making it several more times in this presentation--5 hours condensed into an hour and a half, I suppose. But when you and Senator Craig first cut the deal--and I was an original cosponsor with you--you had to have a basis for the money, the formula for distributing it. You all wisely came up with what is the historical timber harvest on Federal lands. That made sense. It makes logical sense. It is defensible. Now some of our neighboring Senators don't like that deal anymore. They want to change that. They would like to ignore that history, but that is the basis of the formula for these secure county schools payments. It is literally replacing the money lost from the way Oregon historically operated in collaboration with the Federal Government. The terms were changed. The terms were changed in the 1990s.

There is a cost to not harvesting timber. The rest of the country wants us not to harvest timber, but there is a cost to not doing that, and the cost is borne by humans, by local governments. I think it is a dastardly thing on the Federal Government's part to walk away from this now, for it to change the terms and not care for the people impacted by that.

Mr. WYDEN. One last question, if I might, Mr. President. Also, let me also tell the Senate we are very pleased that the Senator from Vermont has joined the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He is going to hear us talking an awful lot in the committee about the county payments legislation, but I just want to say tonight in the Senate I am very pleased the Senator from Vermont has come to the Senate, and we are glad to have him on the committee.

The last question I would pose to my colleague deals, again, with the urgency of all of this, so the Senate is clear on this. I think there is always a sense that sometimes you come to the floor and there is a little bit of an alarmist kind of approach.

My understanding is in our home State, from county officials, there are pink slips going out now. There are budgets that are being made now that are going to be very hard to alter. I appreciate my colleague's presentation over the last bit, and I enjoyed the earlier one as well, and I felt it was an important presentation.

What exactly is taking place? So the Senate is up on this in terms of county budgets, layoff notices, and the kind of pain--that is what this is really all about, the pain we are seeing working families and citizens going through--what exactly is taking place as these budget choices are being made?

Mr. SMITH. The Senator is exactly right in his description of the local pain and the bewilderment of many public employees who work in the counties and need to make mortgage payments, want their kids educated, and would like their neighborhoods kept safe. They are getting pink slips as we speak.

This act expired in September of last year. The money runs out in June. The last two vehicles you and I have to fix this is the CR or the emergency supplemental. My good friend, my senior colleague, is doing exactly what I was doing when I was in the majority, and that is meeting with chairmen, meeting with the leader, describing the intensity of the problem and the moral importance of this for the Federal Government to keep its word. It was an experience in great frustration.

Now I am in the minority, and I am left to stall, throw wrenches in the works, make the moral case. I will continue to do that. You and I, as we have done since our earliest days in the Senate, will work in tandem because, when it comes to Oregon's interests, between Senator Wyden and myself, politics stop at the State border. This is a perfect example of it. We have two shots.

Mr. WYDEN. I thank my colleague for his presentation. I hope the entire Senate followed this discussion--that our whole country does.

I yield the floor.

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