U.S. House strips bill for monies
From our weekly issue dated June 25, 2008
Josephine County Board of Commissioners chairman, Dave Toler
Second District Congressman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said that he is “extremely disappointed” following the announcement that the one-year extension of county payments passed by the Senate in the emergency supplemental bill has been stripped by House majority leadership.
Dave Toler, chairman of the Josephine County Board of Commissioners, had similar feelings. He stated on Friday, June 20:
“Obviously it’s very disappointing for us O&C counties out west. The situation is looking more and more bleak.
“Before Congress recesses in August it’s looking impossible that we would get the money. We could still get it after the beginning of the fiscal year. We can certainly use it; we’d have to do a supplemental budget.
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“We will continue to do what we can,” he stressed. “The county spends some $60,000 per year in dues to two different associations that lobby Congress, and their number-one priority is the O&C money.”
Toler continued, “The commissioners have been listening to and are pulling for our congressional delegation. I have nothing but the highest complements for them and the work they’re doing to try to find the money.
“We have definitely budgeted as though we don’t have the money – we don’t.”
If an extension is approved, Toler said he would like to see some portion of that put into savings, and some used to enhance public safety.
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“We’ve been working hard to live within our means,” he said.
Walden said Thursday, June 16, “I am extremely disappointed that the emergency one-year extension of county payments provided in the Senate was stripped by the House in the final bill. The Democratic leadership’s decision leaves more than 600 rural counties and 4,400 schools across America wondering how they’ll make ends meet to provide basic services,” said the Republican congressman.
“This was a real rescue,” Walden said, “in the form of real funds in a bill the president indicated he will sign into law.
“The predicament facing these counties and schools is an emergency. Just look at Josephine County, where the overnight sheriff patrol for the 1,640-square-mile county is split among just six deputies, or Crook County where the road department has been cut in half.
“This emergency bill was meant to deliver rescue services and the leadership failed to respond to the alarm.
“It’s been a rough patch for county payments advocates the last few weeks, but now is not the time to surrender. Today’s setback (June 19) only makes more urgent the need to find additional bipartisan partners who are
willing to work on a viable long-term extension that can become law.
“We cannot let this most-disappointing turn of events serve as the final chapter in the fight to keep the federal government’s commitment to
America’s rural counties and schools. Real solutions that can be signed into law exist if the leadership will provide us the chance for a vote, and we must keep advocating for this chance.”
Walden has proposed a plan to fund county payments and the payment in lieu of taxes program (PILT). His plan would use “revenue produced from new, environmentally responsible energy production on the Outer Continental Shelf while providing unprecedented control of boundary waters to the states.”
Similar, strongly bipartisan language passed the House in 2006 when oil was $70 a barrel -- today, the cost is near $140 a barrel, he said.
A recent Rasmussen Reports poll showed that 67 percent of Americans favor energy production on the Outer Continental Shelf.
Walden said that his plan would:
*Legally fund county payments.
*Legally fund PILT.
*Increase U.S. energy independence through safe deep ocean energy production
*Create U.S. jobs.
*Give states greatly expanded protection for their coastlines
*Have potential to garner strong bipartisan majority that has backed county payments historically.
