Mr. Clint Georg - The House Committee on Natural Resources ...

timber sales in this area requires adding just 11 people to the current staff. This modestinvestment would be paid back from direct payments for the timber sold, the reduced costsof stewardship contracts, and the potential savings from reduced wildfire risks. <strong>The</strong>commitment for long-term access to this timber is necessary to justify the long-term natureof these investments and additional investments such as those which hold great promise forusing bio-mass from the forest for generating clean-renewable energy. But thoseinvestments are not justified without a stable, long-term supply of timber.2. <strong>The</strong> timber sales must be economically viable. Viability is determined by the compositionof the timber being sold and the performance requirement under those contracts.Lodgepole pine, the type of tree most widely infested, has relatively low commercial appeal,so the timber contracts must be written in a way that harvesting is not cost prohibitive.3. <strong>The</strong> industry must comply with current environmental regulations, but it needs protectionfrom malicious environmentalist actions such as those that destroyed the timber industryin other parts of the country. To understand this, we need look no further than Arizonawhere in 1996 an environmental group won a court injunction that temporarily shut downlogging on all national forests in Arizona and New Mexico. As a result, the Arizona timberindustry is now largely extinct. Since then, Arizona has had the five largest forest fires in itshistory. For more than a decade, that state’s government has desperately been trying withfinancial incentive and other means, to reestablish an Arizona timber industry but has beenunsuccessful – it simply is not economically feasible to replace what was lost. In Colorado,what remains of the timber industry must be viewed as a precious resource for the state.It needs to be protected, because if the industry, and in particular if these two mills, are lost,like in Arizona, they will not be rebuilt.<strong>The</strong>re is an opportunity for the last two large sawmills in this region, using effective private enterprise,to aid in the near and long-term timber management needs of Colorado and Wyoming. For this tohappen, it is essential for the US Forest service to provide an adequate, long-term stable supply oftimber, under economically viable terms. It is also essential that the timber industry be providedprotection from an unreasonable use of environmental regulations such as that which has destroyedother regional timber industries.Thank you for your invitation to speak at this hearing. Your leadership is a critical component in thefuture of this industry. I would be happy to answer any questions.FOLLOWING IS INFORMATION SUPPORTING THE STATEMENTS ABOVE:HISTORY OF THE COLORADO TIMBER INDUSTRYA once vibrant industry, built up over a century, has been decimated due to the lack of access toColorado’s abundant timber resources.To understand the current crisis facing the forests in Colorado, it is helpful to review the history of theColorado timber industry. <strong>The</strong> Colorado timber industry began in the 1860s when vast tracts of virginforests were harvested to support mining, railroads and housing development in the state. FollowingWorld War II, with strong housing markets and public policy encouraging timber production on NationalForests, timber harvests for industrial products in the Four Corners States increased from about 7002