Should California taxpayers be footing an annual $18 million bill to cover the state's expenses for environmental monitoring of logging practices on private timberland?

The fact is the timber industry is one of the only resource-extraction industries whose environmental monitoring and enforcement costs are paid by taxpayers. Most of the other industries pay their own inspection, compliance, and other environmental regulatory costs.

Please help us address this glaring inequity!

The big question of subsidizing the timber industry came up in an Assembly informational hearing in Sacramento on Sept. 27.

The all-day session, chaired by the author of Forests Forever-sponsored A.B. 1005, Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento), set out to clarify the cost to taxpayers of regulating the private timber industry.

According to the independent Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO), the taxpayers foot the $18-$22 million annual price-tag for Timber Harvest Plan (THP) inspection and monitoring by various state agencies.

That money comes almost entirely from the state's General Fund, meaning directly from taxpayer pockets.

Please support Forests Forever in our fight to have the timber industry pay the full and fair price for timber harvest-related environmental oversight!

Forests Forever urges letters and calls to Gov. Jerry Brown, Natural Resources Secretary John Laird, and your state legislators urging them to support the Forests Forever-sponsored measure A.B. 1005 and restore full and fair funding for the California Dept. of Fish & Game's THP inspections.

Resources:

See Legislative Analyst's Office report: "Funding Timber Harvest Regulation" (PDF). Read Matt Weiser's article in the Sacramento Bee (Sept. 28, 2011): "California logging industry's $18 million state subsidy examined.