Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act
The Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives during the 113th United States Congress. The Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act would direct the United States Department of Agriculture to establish at least one Forest Reserve Revenue Area within each unit of the National Forest System designated for sustainable forest management for the production of national forest materials and forest reserve revenues. The bill then states that the purpose of an Area is to provide a dependable source of 25% payments and economic activity for each beneficiary county containing System land that was eligible to receive payments through its state under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000.
Provisions of the bill
This summary is based largely on the summary provided by the Congressional Research Service, a public domain source.The Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act would direct the Secretary of Agriculture to establish at least one Forest Reserve Revenue Area within each unit of the National Forest System designated for sustainable forest management for the production of national forest materials and forest reserve revenues. The bill then states that the purpose of an Area is to provide a dependable source of 25% payments and economic activity for each beneficiary county containing System land that was eligible to receive payments through its state under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000.
The bill would instruct the Secretary of Agriculture to: manage Areas in the manner necessary to achieve their annual volume requirement, and conduct covered forest reserve projects within those Areas in accordance with this Act. It also would define "annual volume requirement" and "covered forest reserve project."
The Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act would require a covered project to be implemented consistent with the land and resource management plan for the System unit in which the project will be carried out. Finally, the bill would require forest reserve revenues to be used to make: deposits into the Knutson-Vandenburg Fund and the salvage sale fund in contributions equal to the monies collected under such Acts for projects conducted on System land, and 25% payments to states for the benefit of public schools and public roads of beneficiary counties.