§ 576b — Purchasers Of National-forest Timber; Deposits Of Money In Addition To Payments For Timber; Use Of Deposits; Seedlings And Young Trees For Burned-over Areas In National Parks

(a) The Secretary of Agriculture may, when in his or her judgment such action will be in the public interest, require any purchaser of national-forest timber to make deposits of money in addition to the payments for the timber, to cover the cost to the United States of (1) planting (including the production or purchase of young trees), (2) sowing with tree seeds (including the collection or purchase of such seeds), (3) cutting, destroying, or otherwise removing undesirable trees or other growth, on the national-forest land cut over by the purchaser, in order to improve the future stand of timber, (4) protecting and improving the future productivity of the renewable resources of the forest land on such sale area, including sale area improvement operations, maintenance and construction, reforestation and wildlife habitat management, or (5) watershed restoration, wildlife habitat improvement, control of insects, disease and noxious weeds, community protection activities, and the maintenance of forest roads, within the Forest Service region in which the timber sale occurred: Provided, That such activities may be performed through the use of contracts, forest product sales, and cooperative agreements. Such deposits shall be covered into the Treasury and shall constitute a special fund, which is appropriated and made available until expended, to cover the cost to the United States of such tree planting, seed sowing, and forest improvement work, as the Secretary of Agriculture may direct. The Secretary of Agriculture is authorized, upon application of the Secretary of the Interior, to furnish seedlings and/or young trees for replanting of burned-over areas in any national park. (c) Any portion of the balance at the end of a fiscal year in the special fund established pursuant to this section that the Secretary of Agriculture determines to be in excess of the cost of doing work described in subsection (a) (as well as any portion of the balance in the special fund that the Secretary determined, before October 1, 2004, to be excess of the cost of doing work described in subsection (a), but which has not been transferred by that date) shall be transferred to miscellaneous receipts, National Forest Fund, as a National Forest receipt, but only if the Secretary also determines that— (1) the excess amounts will not be needed for emergency wildfire suppression during the fiscal year in which the transfer would be made; and (2) the amount to be transferred to miscellaneous receipts, National Forest Fund, exceeds the outstanding balance of unreimbursed funds transferred from the special fund in prior fiscal years for wildfire suppression.