The CBO just released cost estimate for the Devil's Staircase Wilderness Act (PDF) provides an opportunity for an economics exam question:
H.R. 2888 would designate about 29,650 acres of federal land in Oregon as the Devil’s Staircase Wilderness. The bill also would designate about 15 miles of creeks in the area as wild rivers under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Based on information provided by the affected federal agencies, CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 2888 would have no significant effect on the federal budget. Enacting the legislation would not affect revenues or direct spending.
The acreage and waterways to be added to the National Wilderness Preservation System and the Wild and Scenic Rivers System are currently administered by the Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management (BLM). CBO estimates that no additional resources would be required to manage the affected areas as a result of the new designations. Assuming availability of appropriated funds, we estimate that the Forest Service would incur some small costs to decommission roads within the wilderness and convert one road to a recreational trail. We expect that any costs to revise brochures, maps, and signs would be minimal because most such revisions would take place in conjunction with scheduled reprinting and routine maintenance.
Exam question: What are the costs ignored by the CBO of converting National Forest land from multiple use management to single use wilderness area?
However, the CBO ain't dumb ...
Finally, we estimate that enacting the legislation would have no effect on Forest Service or BLM offsetting receipts because the affected lands, which are already managed for conservation purposes, currently produce no income and are not expected to in the future.
Apparently, there was no timbering on these 30k acres. No opportunity cost? Just a simple name change.
