SCR 2: Urging the governor to acquire land in the Tongass National Forest from the United States government by purchase or negotiation or by seeking amendment to the Alaska Statehood Act.
00 SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 2 01 Urging the governor to acquire land in the Tongass National Forest from the United 02 States government by purchase or negotiation or by seeking amendment to the Alaska 03 Statehood Act. 04 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA: 05 WHEREAS the Tongass National Forest was created in 1907 by a proclamation of 06 President Theodore Roosevelt; and 07 WHEREAS, under the Alaska Statehood Act (P.L. 85-508, 72 Stat. 339), the federal 08 government provided Alaska with a 103,350,000-acre land entitlement, which was considered 09 to be sufficient for the newly formed state to become economically self-supporting; and 10 WHEREAS the Alaska Statehood Act (P.L. 85-508, 72 Stat. 339) gave the state 25 11 years to select land for entitlement; and 12 WHEREAS the 25-year period established in the Alaska Statehood Act (P.L. 85-508, 13 72 Stat. 339) as the period in which the state may select land for entitlement was later 14 extended, in effect, by various legislation, with the result that approximately 5,500,000 acres 15 of the land entitlement granted to the state by the Act remain available to the state for
01 selection; and 02 WHEREAS, from the 1950s through the early 1990s, the commercial harvest of 03 timber formed a major part of the economy of Southeast Alaska; and 04 WHEREAS the commercial harvest of timber no longer forms a major part of the 05 economy of Southeast Alaska because the timber industry does not have access to an adequate 06 amount of timber that can be economically harvested from the Tongass National Forest; and 07 WHEREAS, in the past four years, several efforts to revitalize the timber industry in 08 Southeast Alaska have failed because a timber industry cannot exist without an adequate 09 timber supply; and 10 WHEREAS the United States Congress has placed 40 percent of the Tongass 11 National Forest off limits for commercial use, and the United States Forest Service has 12 administratively set aside an additional 58 percent of the Tongass National Forest; and 13 WHEREAS, at the present time, only two percent of the Tongass National Forest is 14 managed for the purpose of providing local communities with the opportunity to harvest 15 timber; and 16 WHEREAS 91 percent of the old growth timber standing in the Tongass National 17 Forest in 1954 remains standing, and the remaining nine percent that has been harvested has 18 now been replaced with young growth timber that will begin maturing in about 30 years; and 19 WHEREAS findings prepared by the Alaska Timber Jobs Task Force in June 2012 20 reveal that the timber industry is vitally important to statewide and regional economies in the 21 state; and 22 WHEREAS the principal barrier to job creation in the Southeast Alaska timber 23 industry is the lack of a sufficient amount of timber that can be economically harvested from 24 the Tongass National Forest; and 25 WHEREAS an unrealistic Tongass Land Management Plan dictated by Washington, 26 D.C., endless environmental legal appeals, and a lack of political will by public officials who 27 are in a position to support meeting timber harvest targets have prevented the United States 28 Forest Service from providing the timber industry access to enough economically harvestable 29 timber in the Tongass National Forest to make the timber industry commercially viable in 30 Southeast Alaska; and 31 WHEREAS, because the United States Forest Service has not been able to provide
01 the timber industry with access to enough economically harvestable timber in the Tongass 02 National Forest to sustain the timber industry in Southeast Alaska, it is time for the governor 03 to take the initiative and to select, under the Alaska Statehood Act (P.L. 85-508, 72 Stat. 339), 04 land in the Tongass National Forest that will provide enough economically harvestable timber 05 to create a sustainable economic base for the communities of Southeast Alaska; and 06 WHEREAS sec. 6 of the Alaska Statehood Act (P.L. 85-508, 72 Stat. 339) limited the 07 state's selection of land from the Tongass National Forest and the Chugach National Forest to 08 400,000 acres and limited the use of that acreage to recreation and community expansion, 09 with the intention of preserving timber for federal long-term sales; and 10 WHEREAS sec. 6 of the Alaska Statehood Act (P.L. 85-508, 72 Stat. 339) allowed 11 the state to select land in other regions of the state without restricting the use of the land to 12 recreation and community expansion, and, because the timber industry in Southeast Alaska 13 has become unsustainable, the state should be entitled to select some of its remaining land 14 entitlement under the Alaska Statehood Act from the Tongass National Forest, without being 15 limited to using that land for recreation and community expansion; 16 BE IT RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature respectfully urges the governor 17 to either negotiate state land entitlements under sec. 6 of the Alaska Statehood Act (P.L. 85- 18 508, 72 Stat. 339) or work to amend the Alaska Statehood Act for the purpose of acquiring 19 forested land in the Tongass National Forest; and be it 20 FURTHER RESOLVED that, if the state fails to acquire forested land in the Tongass 21 National Forest either by negotiating state land entitlements under the Alaska Statehood Act 22 (P.L. 85-508, 72 Stat. 339) or by amending the Alaska Statehood Act, the Alaska State 23 Legislature urges the governor to negotiate the purchase of forested land in the Tongass 24 National Forest from the federal government. 25 COPIES of this resolution shall be sent to the Honorable Barack Obama, President of 26 the United States; the Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Vice-President of the United States and 27 President of the U.S. Senate; the Honorable Ken Salazar, United States Secretary of the 28 Interior; and the Honorable Lisa Murkowski and the Honorable Mark Begich, U.S. Senators, 29 and the Honorable Don Young, U.S. Representative, members of the Alaska delegation in 30 Congress; and the Honorable Sean Parnell, Governor of Alaska.