When did the Forest Service timber sale program cease producing net revenue?
If such were the case, NFS timber harvest trends (Figure 5) indicate this may have happened in the early 1990s, while harvests were declining from a peak of 12.7 billion board feet (BBF) in 1987 to less than 2 BBF by 2001, the lowest level since 1940. To answer the net revenue question one needs revenue data, which are obtainable [Ref. #3], and cost data, which are problematic. Timber cost accounting on NFS lands is a longstanding issue. Robert Wolf of the Congressional Research Service investigated this in the late 1980s, at the height of concern about “below cost” timber sales. Wolf, a forester, was surprised that despite repeated Forest Service claims that the timber sale program was profitable, the agency never demonstrated that the timber program even paid its own way. According to Wolf, the main reason is “the chronic failure to account fully for all program costs” [Ref. #14]. Source: Copied from U.S. Forest Service report [Ref. #3].
