See streaming video of hearing at this link.
1:29pm: Kerr admits the conservation community is split over the bill. Many groups still believe in preserving forests from development because that activity has been harmful in the past. More are recognizing that restoring forests are now what’s needed.
1:05pm Not a fan of the bill, Larry Blasing of the Grant County Forest Commission. Calls it a bureaucratic nightmare that doesn’t address the need for jobs and the economy.
12:48pm: John Shelk of Ochoco Lumber. The bill is an “agreeable compromise” that protects forests and the Eastern Oregon tax base. Nearly two dozen mills have closed. Eight are remaining. How much longer than can survive depends on a steady supply of logs from federal forests.
12:42pm: Oregon witnesses are up. Andy Kerr of Oregon Wild says, “It’s not a perfect bill, but it is nonetheless a great bill.”
12:27pm: Back on topic.
12:24pm: The hearing has temporarily moved to other topics.
12:16: Wyden talks about the importance of the timber industry to making the bill work, and to restoring forests. “If we don’t move quickly, there’s a real risk we’re going to lose those folks. We aren’t going to be able to get it done if we lose those remaining mills and put more loggers on the unemployment line.” “We need them right now,” he says, to get biomass out of the forests.
12:08pm: First witness is Harris Sherman of USDA. He says the Obama Administration supports the bill. This is restoration on a “comprehensive landscape scale basis” and the “only way to get to the root causes” of problems with the forests.
12:02pm: He adds the result is gridlock on more than 9 million acres of choked, at risk forests, in need of management.
12:00pm: Wyden says each side on the logging issue has armed itself politically, with enough resources to survive, but not enough to succeed.
11:50am: Senator Ron Wyden opens the hearing by saying it’s time to “end the timber wars.”
