The Forest Service continues to spend $400 million of its slush fund money with no one to answer to.  Current law allows the Forest Service to operate four huge funds with no oversight from Congress or the public. Some compare the funds to Swiss bank accounts because they operate outside the reach of government oversight.

This lack of accountability has been a point of contention among many experts and watchdog groups for years.

According to a 1997 study by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the U.S. Forest Service took the liberty of spending more than 30 percent of these funds for activities that have nothing to do with their intended purpose.

Earlier this year, the GAO put the U.S. Forest Service at the top of the list of federal agencies that are at “high risk” for waste, abuse and vulnerability to fraud.

But while millions of dollars are being spent without any oversight, an additional travesty is that taxpayers subsidize the timber industry by replanting the lands these companies log.

Also, the taxpayer is responsible for cleaning up the brush and limbs left behind after these private corporations harvest their prime cuts of wood. The Brush Disposal Fund spends $23 million toward cleaning up after these companies.

The U.S. Forest Service must account for all of its other expenses. Why should these trust funds be any different?

The Four Forest Funds

   1. The Replanting Fund ($190 million) was created in 1930 to provide more funding for replanting national forests that have been logged by private industries.

   2. The Timber Salvage Sale Fund ($151 million) was created in 1976 with money that would be used to remove dead and damaged trees from the national forests.

   3. The Roads and Trails Fund ($50 million) was created for the maintenance and construction of roads and trails.

   4. The Brush Disposal Fund ($23 million) is used to discard all of the parts of a tree that are left over after various logging operations cut down trees.