nues and payments estimated to be made under the Act of May 23, 1908, as amended, or any other special Acts making payments in lieu of taxes, for their use for local budget planning purposes. 1

1 The sixth paragraph under the heading "ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS, FOREST SERVICE" in title II of the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1993 (Public Law 102-381; 106 Stat. 1400; 16 U.S.C. 500 note) provides as follows: "All funds received for timber salvage sales may be credited to the Forest Service Permanent Appropriations to be expended for timber salvage sales from any national forest, and for timber sales preparation to replace sales lost to fire or other causes, and sales preparation to replace sales inventory on the shelf for any national forest to a level sufficient to maintain new sales availability equal to a rolling five-year average of the total sales offerings, and for design, engineering, and supervision of construction of roads lost to fire or other causes associated with the timber sales program described above: Provided, That notwithstanding any other provision of law, moneys received from the timber salvage sales program in fiscal year 1993 and subsequent fiscal years shall be considered as money received for purposes of computing and distributing 25 per centum payments to local governments under 16 U.S.C. 500, as amended."

SEC. 13.1 That twenty-five per centum of all moneys received during any fiscal year from each national forest into which the lands acquired under this Act may from time to time be divided shall be paid, at the end of such year, by the Secretary of the Treasury to the State in which such national forest is situated, to be expended as the state legislature may prescribe for the benefit of the public schools and public roads of the county or counties in which such national forest is situated: Provided, That when any national forest is in more than one State or county the distributive share to each from the proceeds of such forest shall be proportional to its area therein. Beginning October 1, 1976, the term "moneys received" shall include all collections under the Act of June 9, 19302, and all amounts earned or allowed any purchaser of national forest timber and other forest products within such State as purchaser credits, for the construction of roads on the National Forest Transportation System within such national forests or parts thereof in connection with any Forest Service timber sales contract. The Secretary of Agriculture shall, from time to time as he goes through his process of developing the budget revenue estimates, make available to the States his current projections of revenues and payments estimated to be made under the Act of May 23, 1908, as amended, or any other special Acts making payments in lieu of taxes for their use for local budget planning purposes.

*

1 Cite as follows: Section 13 of the Act of March 1, 1911 (36 Stat. 963; commonly known as the Weeks Act).

2 The Act of June 9, 1930, is commonly known as the Knutson-Vandenberg Act..

Act of 2000

[Public Law 106-393; October 30, 2000; 16 U.S.C. 500 note]

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.1

(a) SHORT TITLE.-This Act may be cited as the "Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000".

(b) Table of Contents.-[Omitted]

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

(a) FINDINGS.-The Congress finds the following:

(1) The National Forest System, which is managed by the United States Forest Service, was established in 1907 and has grown to include approximately 192,000,000 acres of Federal lands.

(2) The public domain lands known as revested Oregon and Californía Railroad grant lands and the reconveyed Coos Bay Wagon Road grant lands, which are managed predominantly by the Bureau of Land Management were returned to Federal ownership in 1916 and 1919 and now comprise approximately 2,600,000 acres of Federal lands.

(3) Congress recognized that, by its decision to secure these lands in Federal ownership, the counties in which these lands are situated would be deprived of revenues they would otherwise receive if the lands were held in private ownership.

(4) These same counties have expended public funds year after year to provide services, such as education, road construction and maintenance, search and rescue, law enforcement, waste removal, and fire protection, that directly benefit these Federal lands and people who use these lands.

(5) To accord a measure of compensation to the affected counties for the critical services they provide to both county residents and visitors to these Federal lands, Congress determined that the Federal Government should share with these counties a portion of the revenues the United States receives from these Federal lands.

(6) Congress enacted in 1908 and subsequently amended a law that requires that 25 percent of the revenues derived from National Forest System lands be paid to States for use by the counties in which the lands are situated for the benefit of public schools and roads.

(7) Congress enacted in 1937 and subsequently amended a law that requires that 75 percent of the revenues derived from the revested and reconveyed grant lands be paid to the coun

1The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 also included titles V (Mineral Revenue Payments Clarification) and VI (Community Forest Restoration), which are not included in this compilation.

ties in which those lands are situated to be used as are other county funds, of which 50 percent is to be used as other county funds.

(8) For several decades primarily due to the growth of the Federal timber sale program, counties dependent on and supportive of these Federal lands received and relied on increasing shares of these revenues to provide funding for schools and road maintenance.

(9) In recent years, the principal source of these revenues, Federal timber sales, has been sharply curtailed and, as the volume of timber sold annually from most of the Federal lands has decreased precipitously, so too have the revenues shared with the affected counties.

(10) This decline in shared revenues has affected educational funding and road maintenance for many counties.

(11) In the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, Congress recognized this trend and ameliorated its adverse consequences by providing an alternative annual safety net payment to 72 counties in Oregon, Washington, and northern California in which Federal timber sales had been restricted or prohibited by administrative and judicial decisions to protect the northern spotted owl.

(12) The authority for these particular safety net payments is expiring and no comparable authority has been granted for alternative payments to counties elsewhere in the United States that have suffered similar losses in shared revenues from the Federal lands and in the funding for schools and roads those revenues provide.

(13) There is a need to stabilize education and road maintenance funding through predictable payments to the affected counties, job creation in those counties, and other opportunities associated with restoration, maintenance, and stewardship of Federal lands.

(14) Both the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management face significant backlogs in infrastructure maintenance and ecosystem restoration that are difficult to address through annual appropriations.

(15) There is a need to build new, and strengthen existing, relationships and to improve management of public lands and waters.

(b) PURPOSES.-The purposes of this Act are as follows:

(1) To stabilize payments to counties to provide funding for schools and roads that supplements other available funds.

(2) To make additional investments in, and create additional employment opportunities through, projects that improve the maintenance of existing infrastructure, implement stewardship objectives that enhance forest ecosystems, and restore and improve land health and water quality. Such projects shall enjoy broad-based support with objectives that may include, but are not limited to

(A) road, trail, and infrastructure maintenance or obliteration;

(B) soil productivity improvement;

(C) improvements in forest ecosystem health;