Federal lands transfer could cost Idaho millions

A new study by the University of Idaho’s Policy Analysis Group found Idaho could lose as much as $111 million a year millions of dollars if the state takes control of federal public lands in Idaho

Researchers compared various financial benefits for the state’s timber industry to increased costs connected with managing federal lands. Looking at nine different scenarios involving such a transfer, they found Idaho would lose money in eight of them.

Some Republican legislators in Montana are advocating the state take over federal lands here. The general objective is to open up more federal lands to natural resource extraction, from logging to gas and oil, and in some cases ease regulations. Critics here say the revenue earned by the state will not meet the costs of managing the federal lands.

The Idaho report was requested by a legislative committee tasked with studying a state takeover of federal lands in Idaho. The report only studied the cost of managing 16.4 million acres of the 34 million acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in Idaho, leaving out legally protected roadless areas and wild river corridors.

Researchers found that the state saw an annual profit of $24 million in one scenario, where the state boosted the timber harvest by 1 billion board-feet a year and sold it for $250 per 1,000 board-feet.

The state lost money in the other eight scenarios. In the worst-case scenario, the timber harvest would be increased by half a billion board-feet and sold for $150 per 1,000 board-feet, resulting in $35 million of revenue a year and $146 million of costs — in other words a loss of $111 million a year.

Jay O’Laughlin, who wrote the report shortly after retiring as director of the research group, said Idaho would face expensive wildfire prevention and suppression costs if it took control of federal lands.

By taking control of the federal lands, Idaho would be responsible for personnel and equipment to suppress the state’s largest wildfires. Idaho would also be responsible for payments the federal government now provides rural communities to help offset losses in property taxes from nontaxable federal land within their boundaries.

“The question whether payments to counties should continue is likely to spark lively debate,” O’Laughlin wrote in the report.