The Wild and Scenic Rivers System was created to protect the natural characteristics of the nation's "outstanding" free flowing rivers and their immediate surrounding environments.   The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act provides three separate designations for rivers: wild, scenic, or recreational.  According to the National Wild and Scenic River System, a river, or section of river, is designated wild if it is free of impoundments, has primitive shorelines, is only accessible by trails, and has unpolluted waters.  Scenic rivers have largely undeveloped shorelines, may be accessible by roads in places, and are more developed than wild rivers.   Rivers are designated as recreational if they are readily accessible by road, have some development along the shoreline, and may have had some impoundment or diversion (like a dam) in the past.  If a river receives a Wild and Scenic River designation, no new dams may be constructed and federally assisted water resource development projects would not be allowed.  Specifically, the designation prohibits construction of facilities that endanger the free flow and/or resource value of the river.   The designation also authorizes the acquisition of land along a river corridor, not to exceed 100 acres per mile on both sides of designated a river.  In the past, some segments of rivers that Congress has included in the Wild and Scenic River System have raised concerns because they seemingly lacked the essential natural qualities needed to be designated as a scenic river.

According to the H.R. 2781's sponsor, the net-effect of the designation would restrict timber management access to roughly 420 acres of land around the river.  On October 1, 2009, Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR) said, "I am sensitive to the reduction. Therefore, as the committee           moves forward, I would ask the Chairman and Ranking Member to work with me and my staff to ensure there will be no net-loss of the acres available for timber management as a result of this legislation."  However, H.R. 2781 does not contain any provision to offset the restricted timber land with other federal land.  During consideration of the bill in the Natural Resources Committee, Democrats blocked consideration of an amendment that would have offset the lost timber land.

According to dissenting views filed by Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests & Public Lands Ranking Member Rob Bishop (R-UT):

The timber industry is a large part of the tax base in many communities throughout the Northwest.  The recent recession has sharply accelerated the decline of the industry but for close to a decade Congress has helped offset the loss of timber receipts by creating and reauthorizing the Secure Rural Schools program which has cost billions of dollars.  To simply continue to lock up more and more lands to appease special interest groups without finding other lands to offset these lost acres is not only fiscally and economically irresponsible but environmentally ignorant, as well.

Indeed, Oregon's unemployment level in September, 2009, (the most recent month with statistics available) was 11.5 percent, up almost double from 6.8 percent the same month last year.   As economic output, much of which was once fueled by the State's timber industry, continues to deteriorate, Oregon is losing valuable revenue needed to fund schools and the State government.  According to a Pew Center on the States study released this month, Oregon has experienced a 19 percent loss of revenue from 2008 to 2009 and faces a budget gap of 14.5 percent in FY 2010.  To make matters worse, the federal government owns 53 percent of Oregon, and does not pay property taxes.  While the federal government makes payments to local governments that help offset losses in property taxes, State property taxes and taxes on production from the land are still limited because of the federal ownership and restrictions.  Some Members may be concerned that H.R. 2781 would block access to timber resources on approximately 420 acres during a recession without offsetting the loss by opening an equal amount of federal land to timber management.

As part of spending reforms included in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Congress enacted a sustainable growth rate (SGR) mechanism for Medicare physician payment levels.  The SGR mechanism is designed to balance the previous year's increase in physician spending with a decrease in the next year, in order to maintain aggregate growth targets.  In light of increased Medicare spending in recent years, the statutory formula has resulted in negative annual updates.  While an imperfect formula, the SGR was designed as a cost-containment mechanism to help deal with Medicare's exploding costs. 

While Democrats claim Speaker Pelosi's 1,990-page health "reform" bill (H.R. 3962) is "deficit-neutral," the hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending in H.R. 3961 is not paid for.  While Members may support reform of the SGR mechanism, many may oppose what amounts to an obvious attempt to hide the apparent cost of health "reform" by introducing separate legislation to repeal the SGR mechanism without paying for this more than $200 billion increase in federal spending in its first ten years.  Moreover, H.R. 3961 would permanently alter the SGR mechanism, and an independent analysis of official data conducted by former Medicare public trustee Tom Saving found that a permanent reversal of these current-law reductions, if not paid for by appropriate offsets in spending, would increase Medicare's unfunded obligations by nearly $2 trillion over a 75-year period.  Due to these significant concerns about rising deficits and higher federal spending, a bipartisan majority in the Senate recently rejected similar legislation (S. 1776) designed to increase physician payments over the next 10 years that did not include any offsetting spending reductions.

Press reports indicate that the Democrat majority desires to pass a stand-alone "doc fix" bill in order to help facilitate passage of its broader health "reform" initiative.  A CQ Today article noted that omitting an SGR "fix" from the Democrat health "reform" legislation "could free up billions of dollars that Democratic leaders could apply to make other changes in a health care plan"-making it easier for the majority to pass its government takeover of health care.  Therefore, some may view a vote for H.R. 3961 that is not paid for through appropriate spending reductions as helping to facilitate a government takeover of health care, with all its flaws: More than $700 billion in job-killing new taxes, regulations that will raise premiums for millions of Americans, and creation of a government-run health plan causing as many as 114 million Americans to lose their current coverage.

In its rollout of the Pelosi bill, the Democrat majority released a one-page document claiming that "a previous Congress established the policy for paying Medicare doctors, so the update for 2010 is not a new policy to be paid for."  By this logic, future Congresses will not have to pay for any increases in federal deficits and spending associated with the Pelosi health "reform" bill-directly contradicting President Obama's pledge that his bill would not increase the federal deficit by one dime.  Regardless, many may note that adding hundreds of billions in new spending will be paid for-by America's children and grandchildren, through mountains of new federal debt.