President's budget proposal includes sale of 973 acres in Ocala National Forest

Bush looking to forest for funds
President's budget proposal includes sale of 973 acres in Ocala National Forest

CHRISTOPHER CURRY
STAR-BANNER

OCALA - President Bush's 2007 budget proposal suggests putting 973 acres of the Ocala National Forest up for sale as part of an initiative to raise up to $800 million for a federal program that helps fund schools and roads in counties with federal forest land.

Up to 300,000 of the 193 million acres of federal forest land could go up for sale if Congress approves the plan, said Denise Raines, spokeswoman for the Tallahassee office of the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

"Quite frankly our piece of the pie is quite small compared to other states in our region," she said. "Georgia has over 4,000 acres."

Raines said the 14 parcels in the Ocala National Forest, which range in size from less than one and a half acres to two parcels of more than 210 acres, had already been identified as land the federal government would be willing to swap for land farther into the forest in a consolidation effort. On its Web site, the Forest Service describes the land in question as small, outlying tracts "that are isolated or inefficient to manage due to their location or other characteristics."

The president's plan has drawn the ire of the environmental protection group, Audubon of Florida.

"If the way of shaving that deficit becomes selling off acreage in places like the the Ocala National Forest, that would be devastating to environmental management both here and across the country," said Charles Lee, director of advocacy with Audubon of Florida. "To have a fire sale of environmentally sensitive land to try and generate money for the national budget is just nuts."

The Audubon of Florida has produced a map of the parcels, based on location information the Forest Service provided on its web site. The official federal map of the land will not be out until after the President's proposal is published in the Federal Register and a 30 day public comment period starts.

On the Audubon map, many of the parcels border lakes in the forest, including Lake Bryant.

In a press release, U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns R- Ocala said the idea is "merely a proposal" and he wanted to withhold comment on it until after the public comment period. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson's spokesman criticized the proposal as an ill-advised attempt to raise revenue.

"It caught everybody by surprise," Nelson's spokesman Dan McLaughlin said. "As far as we know, none of the delegation members knew about it and we've heard from the national forest managers in Florida that they didn't know about it either. The bottom line is we are certainly opposed to selling off acreage in the Ocala National Forest ostensibly to raise revenue. The administration has raised a huge deficit. It is a $2.5 to $3 trillion budget and selling off acreage on lakes in the Ocala National Forest is not a solution to the budget crisis. The good thing is it is just a proposal so we will have the opportunity in Congress to have it debated and hopefully defeated."

The President's proposal is part of a plan to extend payments under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 for an additional five years. The program helps raise money for roads and schools in counties with national forest land that cannot be taxed. Previously, revenue sharing from timber sales on federal land helped fund the program, but that source of money has dwindled in recent years. Raines said the money would be paid to the State Comptroller' Office which would then administer it to counties with national forest land.