Washington, D.C. – The following is a written statement from Jill Lancelot, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense:

The U.S. Senate today dealt a blow to American taxpayers when it failed to enact an amendment to cut road building subsidies in the Tongass National Forest. The Senate faced a simple choice: preserve corporate timber subsidies or save millions of federal dollars. Today, the Senate chose to champion the cause of the special timber interests, sticking taxpayers with the bill.

The Forest Service collected less than $1 million from Tongass timber sales in 2004, but squandered $48 million on subsidizing the timber industry. A Congress supposedly committed to balanced budgets should be outraged by the mismanagement of federal dollars in the Tongass. Today’s vote indicates that real champions of fiscal discipline are few and far between on Capitol Hill.

Despite what each of us may have learned from our parents, money does indeed grow on Tongass trees, but only for the entrenched special interests. The Senate’s failure to pass the Sununu-Bingaman amendment simply guarantees that the growing dollars are picked directly from the pockets of America’s taxpayers.

Contact: Franz Matzner
202.546.8500 x127