On the recordJune 19, 1996
There is no subsidy in the forest road system. First of all, the timber is sold by the national forests on a bid basis. The bid has two components. First of all, I bid what I am going to buy if I am a bidder for that timber that is put on sale by the Forest Service. Part of my bid includes the fact that I would be given credit for building a road to the Forest Service's specification, because the Forest Service in many cases plans to use that for recreation and other purposes. They may want it built to a much higher standard than you need to harvest the timber. They may plan to use it as their trail program. A great portion of the trails either for walking or horseback riding in our national forests comes from roads that were built to harvest timber and then kept and maintained for the purposes of recreation.
Source
govinfo.gov
