Don’t wait, Congress

We expect Oregon’s congressional delegation to bicker occasionally.

But we figured there was universal agreement among them about the federal county payments program.

We are so naive.

County payments, which Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden helped create in 2000, are supposed to help counties, including Baker, that lost hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly when the amount of logging on federal land plummeted starting in the early 1990s.

County payments were supposed to end in 2007. But Congress, with support from Oregon’s representatives and senators, last fall extended the program for four more years.

But Rep. Peter DeFazio, whose district is in Southwestern Oregon, wasn’t mollified.

DeFazio recently proposed to make county payments permanent. He also wants to allow counties to receive some logging revenue, as they used to. Now, counties can either take payments or timber receipts, but not both.

But DeFazio decided not to introduce a bill because, he said, neither Wyden nor Sen. Jeff Merkley agreed to sponsor a Senate version.

Wyden’s and Merkley’s spokespeople said the senators’ goal is to boost logging.

That’s a worthwhile goal.

But there’s no chance timber cutting will increase enough around here within the next three years to replace county payments.

We’d like our representatives to work together to ensure county payments continue. That’s a better bet than counting on reversing two decades of timber policy.