WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- The UPI think tank wrap-up is a daily digest covering opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events and position statements released by various think tanks. This is the fourth of several wrap-ups for May 13. Contents: NEPA prevents forest conservation; reform Flexible Spending Accounts.
WASHINGTON -- President's plan sees forests and trees
By Charli E. Coon
In 1995, a late-winter storm laid waste to hundreds of thousands of trees in a 35,000-acre area of the Six Rivers National Forest in California. Trees lay strewn across the forest floor, creating conditions particularly ripe for the kind of uncontrollable, unnaturally hot fires that threaten communities and lives.
Officials charged with managing the forests at Six Rivers knew what had to be done. The dead trees had to be removed and the forest floor cleared -- all before fire season began.
But they needed permission from Washington first, so they submitted various options to their superiors to accomplish this, as is required by the National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA. Then, they waited while courts and others plowed through challenges to every part of their plans. By the time forest officials won approval for what was -- for them -- a no-brainer, they managed to clear just 1,600 acres before disaster struck.
Before it was over, 125,000 acres had burned and $70 million had been spent to contain the fires. On top of it all, the U.S. Forest Service had to go back to the drawing board and create still more plans for improving the forest because, of course, the fire had changed the land conditions.
The intent of NEPA -- to ensure forests aren't ripped apart indiscriminately with no concern for environmental fall-out -- is a good one. But in practice, its requirements have become tools used to prevent plans from being enacted until they are rendered moot by the onset of the fires or disease that managers sought to avoid. These shackles on sound forest management have allowed America's forests and rangelands to reach "a crisis of ecological health," according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Last year alone, wildfires burned more than 7 million acres of public and private lands -- an area larger than Rhode Island and Maryland combined. These fires claimed the lives of 21 firefighters, destroyed thousands of structures and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes. The two-headed monster forest officials now confront -- forests with excessive "loads" of dead trees and other brush and forests deteriorating because of disease and insects -- now consumes 190 million acres of public land, an area twice the size of California.
Communities such as Flagstaff, Ariz., and Klamath Falls, Ore., no longer can afford to have sound forest management plans stifled by extremists and their frivolous challenges until fire season arrives and it's too late to help. That's the focus of President George W. Bush's proposed Healthy Forests Initiative, embodied in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 to be taken up this week in the House of Representatives.
The initiative would make it easier for forest managers to "thin" forests -- fell and remove diseased or dead trees -- to perform "prescribed burns," in which small, controllable fires are set to prevent unwieldy conflagrations, and to otherwise treat forests against insect and disease infestation.
It would do so by streamlining the administrative appeals and court challenges to fire-prevention strategies on up to 20 million acres of forest near residential communities, municipal water supplies, areas with threatened or endangered species and areas where trees are infected with certain insects. Forest Service officials estimate they spend 40 percent of their time and $250 million per year assembling multiple plans for projects when they know what is needed, all to fulfill the requirements of NEPA.
The bill would allow forest managers to develop one plan for public comment rather than allowing the public to weigh in on the universe of options available. And on those 20 million acres most in need of treatment, it would remove the option of doing nothing -- a popular one among the hard green left and one required by law now to be among the top options.
It's time we recognize that times have changed with respect to our forests. Our burgeoning population means more of us live near forests and rangelands than ever before. Leaving the forests alone may sound like the best environmental practice, and it may have been 100 or more years ago when the occasional natural burn could correct overgrowth without threatening communities. Now, circumstances demand we control the elements, and thankfully, we have the technology and know-how to do so.
But how we do so must be based on what's best for the forests and the people who live around them. And those decisions are best made by those who have devoted their lives to the study of these ecosystems, and not to extremists who insist that to touch a forest is to defile it.
(Charli Coon is an energy and environment analyst at the Heritage Foundation.)
The National Center for Policy Analysis
(The NCPA is a public policy research institute that seeks innovative private sector solutions to public policy problems.)
DALLAS, Tex.-- Flexible spending accounts: the case for reform
By Michael F. Cannon
Congress can help control health care costs, reduce the number of uninsured and promote quality medical care by making an existing health benefit -- flexible spending accounts, or FSAs -- more flexible, portable and widely available. Doing so would give millions of Americans more control over their medical care and make them more cost-conscious patients.
Federal law allows employers to create FSAs for their employees. Once a year, employees choose how much pretax income will be deducted from their paychecks and deposited into their FSA. (Employers also may contribute to FSAs, although few do.)
Throughout the year, those funds can be spent on medical care at the employee's discretion. Workers can choose their own doctors and are subject to no managed care controls. At the end of the year, however, they lose any unused funds. This use-it-or-lose-it provision guarantees wasteful end-of-year spending on unnecessary medical items. If FSAs were portable and governed by a use-it-or-save-it rule, they could become a powerful force for improving our health care system.
FSAs have much in common with medical savings accounts, or MSAs and health reimbursement arrangements, known as HRAs: All three give patients access to funds to spend at their discretion on out-of-pocket costs. Yet each is imperfect in its own way.
While HRAs allow unspent funds to carry forward into future years, employees do not really own these funds. Instead, HRAs are essentially expense accounts with use-it-or-lose-it incentives similar to FSAs. In contrast, MSAs create an actual savings account that belongs to the worker, follows him or her from job to job, and can be passed on to descendants. However, current law places severe restrictions on who can have an MSA and how much they can contribute.
Of the three, FSAs could have the most immediate positive impact on the health care system. According to the Employers Council on Flexible Compensation, more than 20 million Americans have access to an FSA, though only about 6 million opt for one. In addition, millions of federal employees will be able to open an FSA for the first time this year. This dwarfs both the MSA pilot program, which at last count had sold only about 100,000 policies, as well as the 400,000 HRAs known to exist.
To make FSAs more widely available, Congress should consider several reforms.
-- Currently, workers forfeit unspent FSA balances at the end of the year or when they leave their job. In contrast, an MSA follows the employee from job to job, just like any other savings account. Like MSAs, FSAs should be completely portable.
-- Although FSA deposits are made from the employee's paycheck, employees do not really own their FSAs. Not only is the account balance forfeited at year's end or with a change in jobs, the employee's heirs are not entitled to the funds in case of a premature death. These restrictions need to be changed.
-- Today, FSA holders forfeit any funds they do not spend by the end of the year. In contrast, MSA holders get to keep what they do not spend, and deposits grow tax-free. Like MSAs, unspent FSA balances should carry forward from year to year and grow tax free. This would encourage more prudent consumption of health care resources.
Employees also should have other options for saving unspent FSA balances. They should be able to roll over accumulated balances into other tax-deferred accounts, including MSAs, IRAs, 401(k)s and 403(b)s.
Certain proposals before Congress would limit the FSA funds that could be carried forward from year to year. The limit is unnecessary and unwise. At a minimum, the law should be as generous with FSAs as it is with MSAs. A better approach is to remove all limits.
Some fear that FSAs and MSAs could become vehicles for wealthy people to shelter more income from taxation. But the way to respond to that concern is to include FSA rollover amounts in the limit on total contributions to tax-deferred savings rather than the amount that is allocated to health.
Congress has set limits on how much individuals can add to tax-deferred savings each year. Individuals should be able to rollover any FSA balance, so long as their total additions to tax-deferred savings do not exceed the overall cap. (Most Americans contribute below the current limits.) In most cases this would mean that end-of-year FSA rollovers plus 401(k) contributions plus IRA deposits could not exceed the combined 401(k) and IRA limit. This would target more of the benefits toward low- and middle-income earners, while giving all earners more flexible savings plans.
Prudent health care consumers should be allowed to withdraw unspent FSA balances to spend on other items. Such withdrawals should be subject to payroll and income taxes only, with no additional penalties. Patients should not be penalized for being prudent consumers.
Currently, only employers can create FSAs. This is another restriction that serves no useful purpose. Insurers and financial institutions should be able to create FSA accounts
for individuals, similar to the ones employers create for their employees.
These reforms would turn millions of patients into cost-conscious consumers and would begin a transformation of America's health care system. Consumers would exercise greater control over their medical decisions, and prudent buying would put downward pressure on prices, making medical care and coverage more affordable for all.
Expanding FSAs also would reduce the number of uninsured by putting a more attractive product on the market. Currently, only a fraction of eligible workers opt for an FSA. Uninsured workers who currently decline coverage likely would respond to more attractive FSAs the same as the uninsured have to MSAs. According to the Internal Revenue Service, previously uninsured buyers make up the lion's share (73 percent) of the MSA market.
Finally, as an additional vehicle for retirement health savings, enhanced FSAs would help seniors pay for health care costs not covered by Medicare.
(Michael F. Cannon is director of government affairs for the National Center for Policy Analysis.)
