Bruce F. Vento: “if this would result in a reduction of a billion feet of harvest, that means in essence we are subsidizing. If we were…”

“if this would result in a reduction of a billion feet of harvest, that means in essence we are subsidizing. If we were not putting the money in, that means those sales would not be sustained by their own credits, by their own revenue. That means that we are then subsidizing one-fourth of the timber in this bill. If the Forest Service numbers are correct, that is what that literally means, is that we are subsidizing it, because you cannot harvest it in the absence of the dollars of the Committee on Appropriations. So that I think is a pretty good message to the timber industry that we expect them to carry their own weight, we do not expect taxpayers, if we do not have break-even sales. I think with timber prices up and other factors, we ought to get off the subsidy in terms of these roads. We ought to at least make these programs pay for themselves. I do not think it is the recreation user that is the problem here.”