Summary: The Forest Service is responsible for reforesting areas harvested for timber or destroyed by natural causes in national forests. The Forest Service, which manages 191 million acres of forests, rangelands, and grasslands, obligated about $163 million for reforestation during fiscal year 1994. More than 70 percent of the money for reforestation comes from the Knudson-Vandenberg Trust Fund. Although the Fund had a reported balance of about $338 million as of September 1995, not enough money will be available to pay for all the planned projects, whose cost is now estimated at $942 million. The shortfall has occurred because during the 1990s the Forest Service transferred $420 million from the Fund to pay for emergency firefighting. However, the Agriculture Department has yet to restore these funds, and the Forest Service continues to run the program as if the transfers had never occurred. In addition, the Forest Service lacks reliable financial management information and effective controls to ensure compliance with the Knutson-Vandenberg Act's prohibition against spending more trust funds on an individual sale area than had been collected from that area.
