Bill would allow bonds to help conservation groups buy land

By JENNIFER A. DLOUHY
Friday, May 4, 2001

Groups trying to stave off development in privately held forests and farmlands got support yesterday from legislation introduced by Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Jennifer Dunn.

Their measure would amend the Internal Revenue Code to allow not-for-profit groups and government conservation organizations to buy private land at its fair market value, paying for the purchase with bonds issued by local governments.

"This bill gives communities a new tool to protect vulnerable land from development without jeopardizing businesses, jobs and the rights of landowners," said Murray, D-Wash. "It allows private timber harvesting, but in a manner that exceeds ... existing environmental standards."

Murray and Dunn's legislation would require the groups to create binding conservation and land management plans for all property bought in this way.

Dunn, R-Wash., said the legislation would allow "local private property owners who have beautiful lands to turn those lands over in exchange for dollars ... while ensuring the undeveloped land is preserved for future generations."

The legislation is backed by timber industry representatives and environmental activists in the Seattle area, including Bill Pope of the Nature Conservancy.

Pope said the legislation -- which was introduced during the past two sessions of Congress and passed the Senate in 1998 -- would sustain timber industry jobs and "sustain the needs of wildlife."

"It gives us an alternative to the shouting match that has kind of categorized the debate up until now," he said. "Forestland should not be cut at aggressive, industrial levels, nor does it necessarily have to be preserved as entirely pristine."

Pope has joined with Charles Bingham, a retired executive vice president of Weyerhaeuser, and others in King County to form a group planning to take advantage of such a financing tool, should it pass.

Local governments in Bellingham, as well as in Florida, California and Maine, also expressed interest.