Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is cosponsoring legislation with Sen.
“„Sen. Bingaman said: “Over the past few years, Secure Rural Schools and PILT have been lifelines for financially-strapped rural counties and the thousands of Americans they employ and contract with. While we all have different perspectives on the county payments programs, we recognize how critical they are to our communities and the necessity of bringing together a broad, bipartisan coalition to support this plan if we are to have any chance of successfully securing funding.”
“„Sen. Murkowski said: “Until Congress can return federal land management to a system where our forests generate the jobs and economic activity they once did, Secure Rural Schools provides crucial funding to keep whole some of our most remote communities. I support this legislation as a temporary fix, fully aware that the only permanent solution is for the Forest Service to reinstate regular timber sales to provide some economic benefit to the communities within the national forest system.
“„“The PILT program was put in place to compensate communities with federal lands within their jurisdictions for lost tax revenue. Since I don’t expect Congress to grant local municipalities the right to tax federal lands, I see no reason why we should not continue funding this program for the foreseeable future.”