Later this week, Congress will have a chance to right a wrongheaded public boondoggle that last year gave the timber industry $48.5 million in federal funds to defile the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

Tongass was established as a national forest by Teddy Roosevelt in 1907 and occupies the extreme southeast corner of the Alaskan coast. The world's largest intact temperate rainforest, it's a place of unimaginable lushness and beauty strewn along the Inside Passage like a jade necklace. It is home to ancient Sitka spruce, bald eagles, bears and wolves. It's also a renowned destination for tourists who fish, hunt, hike or simply want to witness the rugged grandeur of one of the world's last wild places.

During the past two decades, the federal government has spent as much as $1 billion to prop up the timber industry in the Tongass. Putting aside the environmental consequences of clear-cutting and road-building in this natural treasure (consequences including the destruction of rare, old-growth trees and woodland habitat, erosion, streams choked with silt and the loss of fish habitat), this practice is also a singularly bad investment.

Last year for example, the forest service spent $48.5 million to help timber interests build roads in the Tongass. In return, the government - or, rather, taxpayers - received $500,000 in logging revenues. It's a situation reminiscent of the oil-industry giveaway uncovered early this year by The New York Times. The investigation found that, while prices for natural gas nearly doubled between 2001 and 2005, the royalties paid by companies to the federal government for right to drill on public lands and coastal waters actually declined.

Thursday, the House is scheduled to consider an amendment to the House Appropriations bill that would put an end to the Tongass boondoggle. The amendment is being offered by Reps. Steve Chabot, a Republican from Ohio, and Democrat Rob Andrews of New Jersey.

Congress should support this amendment. Wasting taxpayer money is bad. Wasteful corporate welfare with little or no public benefit is worse. Publicly subsidizing the destruction of the largest intact temperate rainforest is beyond the pale.