Estimates by the Congressional Budget Office show Rep. Don Young’s Sealaska land bill will cost the U.S. government $2 million in timber receipts over a decade.
The office found passage of the Southeast Alaska Land Entitlement Finalization and Jobs Protection Act would affect direct spending. Therefore pay-as-you-go procedures apply, even though $200,000 — or one-tenth of the bill’s projected 10-year cost — is a miniscule fraction of one percent of the $1.5 trillion 2011 budget deficit projected by the CBO.
According to the Office of Management and Budget the Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 “requires that all new legislation changing taxes, fees, or mandatory expenditures, taken together, must not increase projected (federal) deficits.” Legislation that does not meet this requirement could trigger automatic across-the-board cuts in selected mandatory programs.
The congressman doesn’t see the budget office estimate as a major hurdle to passing his bill, spokesman Luke Miller said.
“It is important to keep in mind that the main reason the legislation scored the way it did, is because as a simple accounting matter, it is a cost for the federal government to give back portions of land that the United States originally took from Southeast Alaska’s Native people,” Miller said. “The CBO provides an accounting of money, that’s it, it does not take anything more into account. Congressman Young is only asking for what is owed to Alaska’s Native people and a Congressional Budget Office score does not tell you that.”
Young’s bill would authorize Sealaska to select the rest of its land entitlement from federal lands outside the area originally delineated for that purpose by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
• Contact reporter Russell Stigall at 523-2276 or at russell.stigall@juneauempire.com.
Comments (7)
Add commentNon-story Story
Every single bill incurs admin costs to implement. Why didn't you use century instead of decade, the number would have been bigger.
NO To Sealaska's Land Grab!
Notice it's Don Young and Lisa Murkowski pushing for this thing. Both are republipukes.
Whereas the Democrat Senator Mark Begich avoids it like the plague and rightfully so.
Sealaska should choose their remaining land from inside the original ANCSA boxes and quit trying to amend the deal. A deal is a deal. Quit cherry picking!
This is bad legislation and is not in the interest of a majority of Alaskans. It's "Land for votes."
What's the cost...
...to the public of 'No Trespassing' signs on the beach in every good anchorage, salmon stream, or along the 50 miles of beach to Yakutat? Tough to assign a dollar figure, but those assets are lost to the public forever.
conservative deficit reduction
Would we expect less from our two conservative Alaskans? No matter what happens it always within the ability of these two to promote more giveaways to native corporations. Apparently the mega millions in dollars and million of acres already provided are not enough pay back. I doubt 100 of Alaska being given to these folks would make them happy.
I wonder if this figure
I wonder if this figure includes all the infrastructure the taxpayer will be giving over to Sealaska, .... millions of $ in road building, decades of maintaining those same roads, LTF building, bridges, second growth thinning and planning for maximized future harvests. Not to mention all the work on TLUMP planning out the window , and having to do it all over again once everything is changed to accommodate Sealaska. All this even though they can select their land they are due any time without this legislation. Don and Lisa are really having to work for their money this time. Who cares if the taxpayer and the public bare the costs again so that corporations can get more profit.
No corporations
Private, for-profit corporations are not good stewards of the land. Sealaska wants the best of both worlds, to cherry pick the best land and beaches and have it as there own. Of course any fire fighting, law enforcement, etc. will be paid by the US taxpayer. Don't worry about infrastructure, the Chinese are quick to come and build ports, docks, whatever it takes to move the logs out. Check out Prince Rupert.
Taxpayers already paid for
Taxpayers already paid for the infrastructure included in these new lands that were never intended to be given over to a private for profit corporation. Sealaska chose the areas to select from, those areas have been held off limits to anyone else for 40 years while they high graded them, getting more timber out of them than was estimated at the time that they would get out of all their timber lands. It is a myth that they are only getting what they are entitled to. They are not entitled to lands already encumbered by public participation and the public planning process. Lands surrounding communities that have participated in good faith with the USFS and the Government to protect important wildlife habitat, fish streams andrecreation areas for decades.