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Senate truce may help county funds Timber payments, assisted suicide bills appear headed for action in September By Dani Dodge A tentative truce in the U.S. Senate means that two contentious and stalled Oregon bills will likely come up for votes in September. A bill to provide federal timber payments to Oregon counties has been locked up because of politics surrounding an Oklahoma senator�s effort to overturn Oregon�s assisted suicide law. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden was, in turn, using blocking tactics to put pressure on Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla. Nickles is holding up a bill that would aid counties and schools dependent on federal timber payments. Nickles, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, is angry because Wyden had threatened to filibuster Nickles� bill to nullify Oregon�s physician-assisted suicide law. On Thursday, Sen. Gorton Smith, R-Ore., who had been trying to negotiate a truce, won a commitment from the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee to include the county-aid legislation in a must-pass appropriations bill. Smith hailed it as a "victory for counties in Oregon that depend on these payments." That may or may not have been the case. But that movement, along with a separate effort to attach the aid for Oregon counties to another bill authored by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., prompted Wyden and Nickles to sit down and talk for the first time since their standoff began last spring. "Sen. Smith has been very helpful throughout the entire process," said Lisa Finkel, Wyden�s spokeswoman. The Wyden-Nickles meeting produced a tentative agreement between the battling senators to put the county aid bill to a vote on Sept. 15. Wyden will continue to oppose Nickle�s legislation to overturn the state assisted suicide law, but has agreed not to be "unreasonable" when that legislation comes to a vote, a Wyden aide explained late Thursday. The county bill would sharply boost aid to counties that have federal forests in their boundaries. Oregon would be the top beneficiary, with annual aid increasing 57 percent from $146 million to $229 million. The act will provide safety-net payments based on a formula tied to the average timber receipts from the three most profitable years between 1984 and 1999. With 50 percent of its land in federal ownership, Jackson County would greatly benefit from the bill. The current timber replacement funding will end in 2003. Without that safety net, the county will be about $10 million a year short. Passage of the bill, though, would mean federal payments of up to $14 million a year. The Associated Press contributed to this story. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA