Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 98 Part 2.djvu/1055

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PUBLIC LAW 98-478—OCT. 16, 1984

98 STAT. 2215

of five years payment must be secured by bond, deposited securities or other forms of security acceptable to the appropriate Secretary in an amount sufficient to cover the entire buy-out payment. (F) For purposes of this paragraph, the term "contract overbid" is the difference between the advertised contract rate and the rate the purchaser bid. (4)(A) Contracts returned pursuant to this subsection under which no harvest has begun shall be returned in full. (B) Contracts returned to the appropriate Secretary pursuant to this subsection under which harvest has begun, shall be returned conditionally and shall not be considered as part of the outstanding volume of timber under contract for the purposes of this Act. The return shall become final after the purchaser has completed stages of contractual obligations for the units on which the harvest has begun, including work on roads, to logical stopping points as determined by the Secretary after consultation with the purchaser. All remaining unharvested units must be returned. (C) The appropriate Secretary may reject return of a contract on which harvest has begun if he determines, in his discretion, that the remaining unharvested portion is substantially unrepresentative of the original sale as a whole in terms of species, logging methods, or other appropriate criteria, and that accepting the return of such contract would seriously disadvantage the Government. (5)(A) Timber from returned or defeulted contracts shall be offered for resale in an orderly fashion as part of, and not in addition to, the normal congressionally authorized timber sales program, and in a manner which does not disrupt regional markets or artificially depress domestic timber prices. Timber from returned or defaulted contracts shall be given preference for resale in the Forest Service timber sales programs. (B) Timber sales in Forest Service region 6 shall not exceed four billion three hundred million board feet of net merchantable sawtimber in fiscal year 1984. (C) Beginning in fiscal year 1985 and continuing through fiscal year 1991 or the fiscal year in which timber contract extensions in region 6 granted under the President's program of July 28, 1983 (as constituted at the date of enactment of this Act), are completed, whichever is later, the Secretary of Agriculture shall set, and periodically adjust as necessary, the maximum annual timber sale volume in region 6. Such maximum sale volume shall be set so as to achieve a volume of region 6 net merchantable sawtimber under contract at the end of each fiscal year which does not exceed twelve billion three hundred million board feet: Provided, however, That such maximum annual sale volume shall not exceed five billion two hundred million board feet of net merchantable sawtimber. The sale of timber within region 6 shall be made in such a manner as not to result in discriminatory treatment as between different forests in the region. (6)(A) The Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture shall publish final rules for the implementation of this subsection in the Federal Register within ninety days after the date of enactment of this Act. (B) Such final rules shall require purchasers to submit buy-out requests to the appropriate Secretary within ninety days after the publication of such rules. (7)(A) For purposes only of determining a purchaser's buy-out limitation under subsection (2) and net worth in connection with

Regulations. Federal Register, publication.

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