The payments were created to backfill school district budgets hit hard with drops in federal logging income, a portion of which goes to counties with large national forest holdings to compensate for their small private tax bases.  Most of the counties are here in the West, with Oregon, California and Washington the top recipients of the school and road funding. In California, 39 counties, predominantly in the Sierra Nevada and the far north, depend on the money to some degree.

Attempts to extend the payments to 2014 were unsuccessful in Congress amid competing partisan funding visions.  "Nobody opposes this," James Parsons, superintendent of schools in Alpine County told the Los Angeles Times. In Alpine Co. 92% of the land belongs to the federal government.  "The problem," he added, "is both sides of the aisle have their different version of how they think we should be funded, and it's tied to other agendas."  A Bush administration proposal to finance the program by selling off national forest parcels collapsed when opposition from sportsmen groups turned even conservative Western congressmen against the idea.