By B. J. Bergman Were John Muir and Adam Smith to rise from their graves, the state of 20th-century logging would likely plunge them both into deepest Scottish gloom. Modern-day timber barons routinely pillage our national forests in the name of quarterly profits, exploiting sweetheart leases that amount to federal giveaways. Environmentalists have long criticized roadbuilding subsidies as a singularly destructive form of corporate welfare. Often built in steep, remote terrain, logging roads leave in their wake heavy soil erosion, which increases the frequency and severity of mudslides and floods, and degrades water quality and fish habitat.
Roads are also a leading cause of forest fragmentation, one of the deadliest threats to wildlife.
But now environmentalists are finding a surprising new ally in fiscal conservatives, including some whose interest in things green has seldom extended to conservation. The hawk squawking the loudest is Congressman John Kasich, the rock-ribbed Ohio Republican who heads the House Budget Committee. This year we have a very public campaign to cut corporate welfare by the chair of the Budget Committee. But victory is far from assured. Last June, an amendment to end the subsidy barely passed the House by a one-vote margin.