Import:Export Wood Purchasing News - February/March 2018

WASHINGTON SCENE
Proposed Bill Would Preserve 30 Percent of
Indiana State Forestland
Recent published reports state that Senator Eric Bassler, R-Washington, is
preparing to submit a bill designating 30 percent of Indiana state forests as
“old forest area” and will prohibit the Department of Natural Resources from
conducting or allowing timber management practices in those areas.
Versions of the bill that have been presented earlier required 10 percent to
be partitioned off, but Bassler stated that he is going to update the bill and ask
for 30 percent. This is the third time Bassler will be putting forward the bill. In
2016, Senate Bill 420 was heard by the Natural Resources Committee but did
not make it to the floor of the senate.
Senator Bassler will be co-authoring the bill alongside Senator Eric Koch, R-
Indiana, and Senator Jon Ford, R-Indiana. Both Bassler and Koch live in districts
that contain significant areas of the state forest system. Notably, Senator
Koch, who advocated for similar legislation when he served in the U.S. House
of Representatives, represents the district (44) that contains Yellowwood State
Forest. The property has been at the center of controversy after the Department
of Forestry auctioned a portion of the forest’s backcountry area for logging
in late 2017.
The reason for putting forth this
legislation is that logging in the
state forests has increased drastically
over the past several years,
partially fueling the opposition of
more recent timber sales.
published reports.
In an appropriations bill to fund the Department of the Interior, Murkowski
proposed rescinding an Obama-era plan to phase out certain types of logging
in the Tongass. The move coincides with a broader GOP push to open up a
section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil development.
The U.S. Forest Services under former President Barack Obama designed
a plan, implemented Jan. 8, that would phase out old growth logging while
encouraging harvests in new growth areas of the forest.
The 17-million-acre Tongass Forest has been logged for decades. The forest’s
old growth timber, found in tree stands that have not been logged before,
is difficult to get, but plentiful and usually of better quality than lumber from
“new growth” trees, according to Murkoswki. ■
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Funds From Timber
Sales To Now Be
Dispersed In
Oregon/California
Recently, U.S. Secretary of the
Interior Ryan Zinke announced
that $1.4 million of timber payments
sequestered during the
Obama administration will begin
being dispersed in the coming
weeks.
Commissioner Tim Freeman,
who is also president of the Association
of O&C Counties, credited
the work of Secretary Zinke and
Congressman Greg Walden with
the successful release of the previously
sequestered funds.
The 18 O&C Counties receive a
share of receipts from the sale of
timber harvested from 2.1 million
acres managed by the Bureau of
Land Management, an agency
within the Department of the
Interior.
Secretary Zinke said his next
priority is “ensuring that these
lands continue to provide sustainable
timber harvests that support
the community and strengthen the
health of the forest.”
If New Bill Passes,
Expanded Logging
Activity Could Be
Seen In Tongass
GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski
of Alaska is attempting to undo restrictions
on logging in her state’s
Tongass National Forest, which
is reportedly the largest national
forest in the U.S., according to
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FAX: 574-739-2818 Phone: 574-739-2319
Import/Export Wood Purchasing News February/March 2018 Page 11