Watching the Federal Timber payments issue is kind of like watching a dog chase its tail. Environmentalists hate timber being cut, so Landowners rights to produce timber gets held up. Counties suffer from tax revenue, so the government steps in to subsidizes county loss of tax revenue. The government pulls back on subsidies for tax revenue, so counties suffer from tax revenue.
Doesn’t seem to be working very well does it? Seems the only pieces missing here seem to be a little bit of the free market system and a landowners property right to the use of their land.
See “County sees no good options” [1]
and “Counties strive to make up for federal timber payments” [2]