Oregon Public Broadcasting

President Bush says he will veto a bill that would send hundreds-of-millions of dollars to struggling Oregon counties.

It's the President's most extensive public comments on the federal subsidy known as rural timber payments.

After a fierce debate on the House floor Wednesday, lawmakers agreed to delay a vote on the bill. From our central Oregon bureau, Ethan Lindsey reports.

More than three-quarters of the land in Deschutes County is federally-owned. That makes for beautiful hikes in the Deschutes National Forest, just ten miles outside of Bend.

But it also leaves Deschutes County, and others like it, cash poor. That's because the federal government doesn't pay property taxes on that land.

Desperate pleas to find that money are being heard -- but not out here in plains of rural Oregon. They're echoing in the austere chambers of the U.S. Congress.

In 2000, Congress passed the 'Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act.' That's basically  a fancy name for a billion-dollar government check to rural counties in Oregon and some other timber states.

That subsidy was extended until this year, when the money runs out. Oregon's senators and congressional reps have cooked up various reincarnations of the plan -- each getting rebuffed.

Perhaps the final nail, at least for the next year, is the president's veto threat.

President Bush says he will not sign off on a plan backed by Springfield Democrat Peter Defazio to extend the payments by taxing oil and gas companies.

Bush says he supports the program -- but with greater spending cuts and a specific phase-out of the payments.

Now, Defazio says the only way to extend payments - is to wait for the next administration.

Peter Defazio: “We're not going to make progress with this President. He's not likely to pay for this in any acceptable form. He certainly doesn't want to do it by putting royalties on oil companies.”

Defazio didn't reserve his anger for President Bush.

He also lit in to opponents of the bill, including Hood River Republican Greg Walden.

Walden has publicly and vociferously supported timber payments in the past. In fact he sponsored the current bill -- when it called for  a different funding source.

Currently, Walden says Republicans believe the oil tax is illegal.

Instead, Walden proposed finding the money by opening up some offshore drilling.

Greg Walden: “I came here calling for this bill to come to the floor with a clear understanding that the bill would come here with a different offset, one that was palatable. That promise and pledge was broken.”

Here's Peter Defazio, responding on the floor the House.

Peter Defazio: “We can help kids get an education, we can keep teachers employed, we can provide money to police our counties. And to keep people in jail and for other public servicesand public works, we can do those things. But you gotta have some guts. Every once in a while you gotta stand up.”

But, in the end, that back-and-forth may have signified-- a whole lot of nothing.

Sen. Ron Wyden's office says he will try to push for the legislation if it makes it out to the Senate floor.

But even then, in its current form, it faces a Presidential veto.