Forest Service Budget Cuts
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“Chopping the Forest Service” (editorial, March 13) addressed important environmental issues on road construction and Forest Service funding. But the Forest Service no longer even investigates the crudest, most destructive environmental crime: corporate timber theft in national forests.
The Government Accountability Project represents whistle-blowers from the agency’s former Timber Theft Investigative Branch. The TTIB was the only agency division responsible for monitoring commercial timber theft until it was axed without warning in 1995. The gap remains unfilled.
The largest case in agency history was the TTIB’s last. At least $3.2 million dollars was recovered from corporate timber theft. After this victory, the TTIB was abolished. In congressional testimony, former Forest Service Chief Dale Robertson admitted timber theft may cost taxpayers $100 million annually, including one in 10 trees cut in national forests.
Post-TTIB prosecutions have resulted in recoveries averaging $1,500--the value of firewood. Corporate prosecutions are nonexistent. Due to funding cuts, the Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations Program is moving to “de-emphasize resource crime.”
TOM LEVINE, Legal Director
MARIK MOEN, Outreach
Coordinator, Governmental
Accountability Project
Washington
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