[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 26 (Monday, February 12, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1837-S1845]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONTINUING RESOLUTION
Mr. SMITH. Madam President, the role of the Federal Government is
both a protagonist and an antagonist of Oregon, and what a desperate
situation we are in. I say this because some have said to me that you
cannot filibuster a continuing resolution, you will shut down the
Government. My point back is that whatever it takes, maybe in getting
the Federal Government to look over the abyss with me, it will
understand how many Oregon counties are feeling at this critical hour.
Senator Wyden and I are one on this issue. He is working the majority
now, and I worked the majority in the 109th Congress. He will find it
frustrating trying to get a focus on this issue that affects not just
our State but so many others, but ours is affected disproportionately.
The Federal Government owns 53 percent of Oregon and 57 percent of
our timberlands. As you know, local communities cannot tax the Federal
Government. So the deal that was cut back at the turn of the last
century was that, in lieu of taxes, local communities would get 25
percent of timber receipts and, with that, kids could go to school,
neighborhoods could be safer, streets would be paved, and civilizations
would be built in these timber-dependent, isolated areas, and you are
talking about most of Oregon.
So my call tonight is to lay out before the American people the
plight, the history, and the reason for my arguing now on this bill and
the next bill but, frankly, if the 110th Congress doesn't solve this on
the continuing resolution, or on the emergency supplemental, the pink
slips that have already gone out will turn red, and there will be
tremendous damage done to rural Oregon, which is most of Oregon.
So I pick up now, Madam President, where I was interrupted before by
the needs of others and at the request of the majority leader:
Think of railroads as the internet of America's Gilded Age
. . . a totally transforming technology . . . that allowed
people in the late 1800s to communicate and travel great
distances faster, cheaper, and more efficiently than ever
before. Nowhere was this transformation more profound than in
the Pacific Northwest.
Prior to the completion of the transcontinental railroad in
1869, there were less than 130,000 American settlers residing
in all of the Oregon country, including the Washington and
Idaho territories. Communications were typically hand
delivered documents. To transport them across the country,
they first had to be carried to Missouri, probably by
riverboat or wagon, and then carted cross country to the
Pacific Coast.
Alternatively, they could be delivered by boat from the
Atlantic Coast, sailing around the southern tip of South
America, then up the Pacific Coast; or, as a third option,
sailing from the Atlantic coast to Central America, crossing
over the mountains to the Pacific Ocean, loaded back on board
ship, and sailing up the Coast.
However it was done, the trip was lengthy, dangerous and
expensive. Having the ability to ride a railroad from the
Atlantic to the Pacific changed America dramatically and
helped to stitch together a nation nearly torn asunder by a
horrific Civil War.
Eastern railroads connected to Omaha, where the route to
the West began. The Union Pacific route more or less followed
the Oregon Trail west to Utah where it connected with the
Central Pacific, ultimately reaching San Francisco.
Building the railroad, itself, transformed the West.
Congress enacted various ``land grant'' programs, selling off
vast amounts of land in the West, to both bring settlers and
raise money, to help finance construction. Many of these new
``sodbusters'' were attracted west by the promise of cheap
farmland. They fenced and plowed the prairie to start their
farms. The railroads, in turn, hauled their crops to far away
cities, in so doing also transforming what Americans ate.
As rail construction moved westward, crews and supplies
were constantly moved out to the end of the line, settling
there until the next section of road was completed. These new
towns were soon filled with a ``Wild West'' brood of
gunslingers, cardsharps, prostitutes, saloons and bordellos,
gathered to separate the construction crews from their wages.
As the line moved further along, the railroad also moved
its supply stop. Some of the older towns left behind
survived, and a few even thrived, but most were abandoned.
Residents wanting to move to the next stop were loaded onto
railroad cars, along with their buildings, including the
saloons and bordellos, and hauled to the new end of the line,
giving birth to the expression ``Hell on wheels.''
Even with completion of the transcontinental railroad, the
Pacific Northwest remained largely isolated. Supplies and
communications still needed to be packed in by wagon from the
nearest rail line in Utah, or brought by land or ship north
from San Francisco.
Rivers were the highways of the Northwest, and Portland,
located near the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette
Rivers, became the gateway. Millions of dollars worth of gold
and silver poured through Portland on its way to San
Francisco from mines as far away as Montana and Idaho.
Settlers quickly learned that the thick forests of the
Northwest could be logged, and much of the lumber, when
shipped south to California, created gold of its own.
In 1859, when Oregon became the first Northwest state
admitted to the Union, Portland's population was less than
800 residents. Ten years later it had grown to nearly 10,000.
It all happened so fast that Portland became known as
``Stumptown.'' Early residents logged the riverfront to
create the new town, not bothering to remove the stumps.
Instead, they simply painted them white, hoping they could be
seen in the dark.
It didn't take long for Oregonians, and East Coast
financiers, to figure out that a railroad from Portland to
San Francisco could transform the Northwest economy, making a
lot of money along the way, for its builders.
By 1866, two rail lines had started south from Portland,
one on the west side of the Willamette River, and the other
on the east side. Construction was very expensive. Neither
line had the financial wherewithal to make much progress.
Oregonians needed the deep pockets of Uncle Sam to help build
their railroad.
The Union victory in the Civil War created a spending spree
in Congress. Taking advantage of this postwar exuberance,
Oregon Senator George H. Williams persuaded Congress to
authorize construction of a rail line from Portland to the
California border.
``The Oregon and California Land Grant Act of 1866''
provided that railroad construction would be subsidized by a
grant of 5 million acres of public land in alternating 640
acre sections extending like a checkerboard for 10 miles on
each side of the proposed rail line.
While the Act left it up to the Oregon Legislature to
decide who would build the railroad, it provided that the
United States Department of the Interior, through its General
Land Office, would sell the land to ``actual settlers'' in
plots no bigger than 160 acres, at a price no more than $2.50
per acre. The land turned out to be some of the richest
timberland in the world.
That kind of government largesse naturally brought out less
than the best in business and political interests. It wasn't
long before the railroads were dominating the state
legislature. Since, at that time, legislatures still selected
U.S. Senators, Sen. Williams was soon replaced.
Previously proving his worth to the railroads as President
of the Oregon State Senate, [Senator John Mitchell] would
represent Oregon as U.S. Senator, off and on, for the next 20
years. During his entire time in public office, Mitchell was
also on the payroll, as legal counsel, to both the Northern
Pacific and the O&C Railroads. He was known to boast that
what the railroads wanted, he wanted.
Williams, suddenly retired as Oregon's Senator, did not
return directly to Oregon. Instead, he was appointed Attorney
General by recently elected President Ulysses Grant.
He served in that capacity for six years until an opening
occurred as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and
Grant nominated his Oregon friend for the job.
Unfortunately for Williams, the national railroad scandals
then rocking Congress, combined with increasing rumors of
things not being quite what they should in Oregon, convinced
the Senate not to confirm Williams. He returned to Portland
to practice law, and ultimately was elected Mayor of the
growing city.
Even with the O&C land grants, railroad promoters went
broke several times before construction was finally completed
20 years later. By this time, the O&C Railroad was a part of
the Southern Pacific line. The driving of the mandatory
``golden spike'' near Ashland, Oregon in 1887 linked Portland
to San Francisco at last.
To help pay for the lengthy construction, the federal
government, through the Interior
[[Page S1838]]
Department's General Land Office, had been selling off 160
acre parcels of the O&C lands to all comers, regardless of
whether they were ``actual settlers'', as the law required.
``Doing a land office business'' took on a rather dubious
meaning in Oregon, as land speculators hauled drunks out of
saloons and sailors off ships, delivering them to the
Government Land Office to claim a piece of federal land. The
new ``owners'' then transferred their deed to the
speculators, sometimes for as little as a bottle of whiskey,
all with the Land Office approval.
In the process more than 3 million acres were fraudulently
looted from Oregon's public domain.
Rumors of the O&C land fraud soon began circulating in the
nation's capitol, but it wasn't until Teddy Roosevelt entered
the White House in 1901 that the federal government
responded.
Special investigators were sent by the President to Oregon
in 1903, where they were met with intense hostility from
Oregon's political and business community. The railroad and
logging interests attempted to stonewall the investigators,
but a series of damning articles, published by crusading
editor Harvey Scott of the Portland Oregonian, finally
exposed the fraud.
The federal investigators soon returned 1,032 indictments,
including Senator Mitchell, several Oregon Congressmen, U.S.
Attorney's, GLO officials, judges, mayors, lawyers and
businessmen. When the cases went to trial in 1905, they were
pared down to 35 of the chief culprits, of whom 34 were
convicted, including Senator Mitchel1. He died at age 70
before being sent to prison.
Just as completion of the railroad transformed the
Northwest economy, the land scandal transformed its politics,
creating a populist foundation which can still be felt.
Led by political reform groups such as the farm-based
Grange, the ``Oregon System'' was enacted by the Oregon
Legislature, calling for the direct election of U.S.
Senators, and public oversight of Legislative Acts. Voters
could decide public issues at the ballot box, with measures
to initiate laws (initiative), repeal legislative acts
(referendum), or even remove officeholders (recall).
Within a decade the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
was adopted nationwide, requiring the direct election of all
U.S. Senators, and the initiative, referendum and recall
became the state standard for political reform.
After the spectacular trials of 1905, the federal
government acted to take back the valuable O&C timberlands,
now owned by the Southern Pacific, but the Railroad fought
back in court. The battle raged in the courts until 1915 when
the Supreme Court ruled for the government.
The following year, Congress set up an ``O&C'' account,
funded by timber sales off the lands, to reimburse the
Southern Pacific for the lands the federal government had
taken back, and to provide funds to the O&C Counties where
the lands were located.
It wasn't until the depression years that Oregon's Senator
Charles McNary turned the O&C lands golden. Senator McNary
had become the Republican Minority Leader of the Senate in
1933, at the beginning of President Franklin Roosevelt's
second term.
Over martini's at the White House, the Republican Senator
and the Democrat President sorted out their differences and
agreed on significant legislation beneficial to the
Northwest, including federal help for farmers, the creation
of the Bonneville Power Administration, the International
Pacific Salmon Fisheries Act, and the O&C Lands Sustained-
Yield Act, all enacted by 1937.
The new O&C Act transformed federal funding for the 18
Oregon counties home to the O&C lands, and Oregon's golden
goose was born. The Act created the Bureau of Land Management
in the Department of the Interior, out of the ashes of the
old General Land Office, and directed the BLM to harvest
timber off the O&C Lands, on a sustained yield basis, with an
unprecedented 75 percent of the receipts from the timber
sales being returned to the O&C counties.
At one of those White House visits, Roosevelt, in
anticipation of his run for a third term in 1940, suggested
McNary should be his Vice-Presidential running mate on a
``Unity Party'' platform. McNary declined and was later
nominated by the Republicans to run as their Vice
Presidential candidate with corporate attorney Wendell
Willkie at the head of the GOP ticket.
With the post war building boom in the 1950s, the O&C
revenues were pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into
Oregon's cash starved rural counties, funding schools and
other local projects. The golden goose had become the
touchstone of Oregon politics.
Oregon's Mark Hatfield championed the O&C lands as
governor, and used the issue to help get elected to the
Senate in 1966. As he gained power on the Senate
Appropriations Committee, Hatfield became the guardian of
Oregon's unique golden goose.
Madam President, that is a brief history of the O&C lands--one that
will become more consequential later in my statement, when I
specifically discuss county payments safety net.
The fundamental point I am trying to make is that between the
national forests and the O&C lands, the Federal Government holds 57
percent of Oregon's standing timber. Yet the Federal Government
contributes less than 7 percent to the State's total timber harvest.
This was not always the case.
The history of my State, as well as its current predicament, is
closely tied to the harvest of timber, of ``green gold.'' Atop our
State capitol in Salem stands a 23-foot gold-gilded pioneer, an ax
proudly in his hand.
In 1909, the Oregon State Board of Forestry described my State's
timber wealth as follows:
Beyond question, the greatest national endowment of Oregon
is the unsurpassed wealth stored up in the forests of the
State.
Oregon has approximately 300 billion feet of standing
merchantable timber. This is not an idle guess, but it is the
average of the estimate of government officials, cruisers,
and timber experts who have traversed the entire State and
made the matter a thorough study. This is a much greater
amount than is possessed by any other State in the Union and
is nearly one-sixth of the total amount of standing
merchantable timber in the United States. It is noteworthy
that this immense amount of timber is found on an area which
is only 57 percent of the area of the State. The value of
this body of timber is twofold; first, as a source of lumber
supply; second, as a factor in the maintenance of a perpetual
flow of water in the streams and rivers of the State, by
retarding the melting of the snow and holding a continuous
supply of moisture in the ground during the summer months.
Commercially, the value of the standing timber of Oregon,
when manufactured into lumber and sold at the rate of $12 per
thousand, would be $3.6 billion, a sum in excess of the total
amount of currency in the United States at the present time.
Amazing. At current lumber prices, the value of this standing timber
would be $150 billion in stumpage value alone. But in the early years
of Oregon country, timber was not a primary commodity, it was
considered a nuisance and a detriment to agriculture. Trading companies
such as the Hudson's Bay Company harvested Oregon's wealth from its
fur-bearing animals, such as the beaver--the State animal of Oregon and
the mascot of our land grant college, Oregon State University. Go
Beavs! But as time rolled on, the settlers of Oregon country sought a
new source of wealth in the lush virgin forest all around them.
Oregonians made great strides into turning trees into 2 by 4s. The
first power-driven sawmill was built in 1836, 23 years before our
statehood. The first commercial production of Douglas fir plywood was
invented in St. John's, OR, by the Autzen family. That name is now
familiarly associated with the University of Oregon football stadium.
Go Ducks!
The single most important invention affecting logging was the
chainsaw of 1935. It was not invented in Oregon, but it was perfected
in Oregon. In 1947, a lumberjack named ``Joseph Cox'' invented chainsaw
teeth. Joe was chopping firewood one chilly autumn day in 1946, when he
paused for a moment to examine the curious activity in a tree stump. A
timber beetle larva the size of a man's forefinger was easily chewing
its way through sound timber, going both across and through the wood
grain at will.
Joe was an experienced operator of the gas-powered saws used in those
days, but the cutting chain was the problem. It required a lot of
filing and maintenance time. He said: I spent several months looking
for nature's answer to the problem. I found it in the larva of the
timber beetle.
Joe knew if he could duplicate the larva's alternating C-shaped jaws
in steel, it might catch on. He went to work in the basement shop of
his Portland, OR, home and came up with a revolutionary new chain. The
first Cox Chipper Chain was produced and sold in November 1947. The
basic design of Joe's original chain is still widely used today and
represents one of the biggest influences in the history of timber
harvesting.
In 1907, there were 173 sawmills in Oregon, but with new and improved
chainsaws in the woods, came equally impressive sawmills. C.A. Smith
Lumber and Manufacturing Company built the Nation's largest sawmill in
Coos Bay. Coos Bay also became the largest lumber-exporting port in the
world. The world's largest pine lumber factory was built by
Weyerhaeuser in Klamath Falls, south of the Winema National Forest.
By 1929, there were 608 lumber mills, 5 paper mills, 64 planing
mills, and 47 furniture factories in Oregon. By 1947, Oregon had 1,573
lumber mills turning out more than 7 million board feet.
Timber also served as a national strategic interest. The Federal
Government built its own sawmill in Toledo,
[[Page S1839]]
OR, to harvest spruce trees for airplane manufacturing during World War
I.
During World War II, Oregon had the unfortunate distinction of
receiving the first mainland aerial bombing. On September 9, 1942, a
Japanese pilot flew over the Oregon coast, with the intention of
dropping a firebomb on the thick forest and causing a massive fire,
shocking Americans and diverting resources from fighting the war to
fighting fire. Once over forested land, the pilot released the bomb,
which struck leaving a crater about 3 feet in diameter and 1 foot deep.
In 1944, Japan launched over 9,000 firebomb balloons over the Pacific
Ocean. Once again, the goal was to start forest fires in Oregon and
wreak havoc. The most tragic incident involving balloon bombs also
found a place in history as yielding the only deaths due to enemy
action on mainland America during World War II.
The events unfolded on May 5, 1945, as a pastor and his wife took
five children for a picnic on a beautiful spring day east of Bly, OR. I
should note that a few years ago, Mr. President, the Federal
authorities thwarted al-Qaida plans to build a jihadist training camp
in Bly, OR. But back in 1944, Rev. Archie Mitchell parked his car near
Bly, and he heard his pregnant wife call out: Look what I found, dear.
One of the children tried to remove the balloon from a tree and
triggered the bomb. The force of the blast immediately filled the air
with dust, pine needles, twigs, branches, and dead logs. The entire
family was killed.
During World War II, private timberlands, not Federal, fueled the war
effort. This was necessary because they had roads and quick access to
timber that was needed to help win the war. Lumber producers also had
implicit assurances from the Federal Government that Federal forests
would open up after the war. As Associate Forest Service Chief Sally
Collins recently stated:
Post-World War II, the Forest Service entered a new period
characterized, in large part, by timber production. From the
1960s to the 1980s, every administration, with strong
congressional support, called for more timber harvest from
the national forests, with the goal of replacing the depleted
stocks of private and State timber as a result of the war
effort. At its peak in 1987, the national forests provided
close to 30 percent of the Nation's timber supply.
The bulk of the wood came from Federal lands in Oregon. Postwar
timber harvest on Federal land alone in my State oscillated between 4
and 5 billion feet per year--enough wood to build nearly 300,000 homes.
The revenues from these harvests energized rural Oregon, not to mention
the Federal Treasury, since 75 percent of the proceeds came right here
and were deposited in Washington, DC.
It was a win-win and in the spirit of the Federal Government acting
in the aide, not the ailment, of the States united under its banner. It
was the same spirit in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the
Bonneville Dam on the mighty Columbia River. Said he at the time:
The responsibility of the Federal Government for the
welfare of its citizens will not come from the top in the
form of unplanned hit or miss appropriations of money, but
will progress to the national capital from the ground up,
from the communities and counties and States which lie within
each of the logical geographical areas.
The timber industry built itself literally from the ground up and is
a living legacy in Oregon to this day. Back cuts and board feet,
buckers and fellers, chokers and cruisers, skidders and slashers,
springboards and spring poles and widow-makers, these are terms still
heard in the woods, in smokey bars, and in Forest Service rigs all
across Oregon.
The great Johnny Cash once wrote a song about Roseburg, OR, the
timber capital of the world. In spoken word, on his ``Ride this Train''
album, the ``man in black'' said this:
Ride this train to Roseburg, Oregon, now there's a town for
you; and you talk about rough, you know a lot of places in
the country claim Paul Bunyon lived there; but you should
have seen Roseburg when me and my daddy'd come there; every
one of them loggers looked like Paul Bunyon to me; as I was a
skinny kid about 16 and I was scared to death when we walked
into that camp; none of the lumberjacks paid any attention to
me at first; but when my pa told the boss that me and him
wanted a job; a lot of 'em stopped their work to see what was
gonna happen; that big boss walked around me, looked me up
and down, and said, Mister, I believe that boy is made out of
second growth timber, and I guess I was. Everybody but me and
my pa had a big laugh over it. Pa got kinda mad and the boss
finally said he might start me out as a high climber--I
didn't know what a high climber was. Boy, I sure learned
fast. That steel corded rope cut my back, and that ax, I
thought it was gonna break my arms off, but I stuck with it.
It wasn't long till I learned a man's got to be a lot tougher
than the timber he's cuttin'. Finally I could swing that
crosscut saw with the best of them.
Country singers were not the only artists to embrace Oregon's logging
heritage. Ken Kesey might be known to some of my colleagues as the
author of ``One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.'' Oregonians know Ken
Kesey as one of their own--a countercultural figure, bridging the gap
between the beatniks of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.
Kesey's second novel, ``Sometimes a Great Notion,'' tells of a
hardheaded Oregon logging family hacking a family wage out of the
woods. I would read some of that work, but in the interest of getting
through this 5-hour speech in an hour, I will save that for another
day. His work does personify the pride, passion, and perseverance of
the Oregon logger and the Oregon spirit itself.
Kesey's words vividly describe the back-breaking work of logging,
seen through the eyes of a long-lost brother from the east coast. In
the nonfiction world, another east coast brother--``Big Brother,'' if
you will--would break the back of Oregon's logging industry.
(Mr. SANDERS assumed the Chair.)
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. SMITH. I will yield.
Mr. WYDEN. Through the Chair, I would like to pose a couple of
questions to my colleague making an important speech.
I have been attending a lot of town meetings across the State, and I
know my colleague is attending some as well. What is your sense of how
dire the situation is at home? When I talk to people, you get the sense
this is a real lifeline, and I think it would be helpful if you could
lay out exactly that sense of urgency you are picking up at home.
Mr. SMITH. My response is the same as the Senator's. It is a sense of
abandonment, a sense of betrayal, a sense that the Federal Government
made a deal, changed the terms, and now is welching on the deal.
That is why I am here giving the history of this State, trying to
share with my colleagues some of the feeling, the history, the blood,
sweat, and tears that went into building Oregon and why the Federal
Government needs to be the protagonist for Oregon again, not the
antagonist.
So that would be my answer. They feel like the Federal Government
gave its word and needs to keep it.
Mr. WYDEN. Again, through the Chair, Mr. President, would it be my
colleague's sense that at home the kinds of services that are on the
line are not exactly what the people call the extras? We are talking
about law enforcement. We are talking about schools.
I know the Senator shares a long friendship with Sheriff Mike
Winters, for example, of southern Oregon, and he has told me the kinds
of cutbacks we have seen in law enforcement are extraordinary, such as
involving the effort to fight methamphetamines.
What is your sense of the kinds of services we would see go by the
boards if this program is not sustained?
Mr. SMITH. Well, Senator, I have spoken to it at the beginning, in
the middle, and at the end of this, the kinds of things you are asking,
the kinds of services that will be jeopardized or the kinds of services
every American citizen expects local communities to provide. Most
communities provide them through property taxes, local levies of some
kind that keep our teachers, our policemen, our roads paved, health
services, and more. These are the kinds of things which are the
cornerstone of what we would call ``civilization'' in rural places.
It is that and more. We could go looking at program after program
that, if the Federal Government welches on its bargain, are the kinds
of services that will be lost to Oregon because Oregon is over half
owned by the Federal Government. It is real simple. Time is up, and the
deal needs to be kept.
Mr. WYDEN. Continuing through the Chair, Mr. President, isn't it
correct, I
[[Page S1840]]
ask my colleague, that members of our delegation, of both political
parties, have suggested alternatives for funding this program? For
example, our whole delegation to a person was very troubled about this
idea of selling off our treasures because not only was that not morally
right, clearly it would have no prospect whatever of passing in the
Senate. So I know our colleague in the other body who represents the
eastern part of our State had some good ideas, and our colleague in the
other body from southwestern Oregon had some good ideas. It seems to
me--and I think it would be helpful if you could bring the Senate up to
date--that both Democrats and Republicans have been trying to work in
good faith for ideas that would responsibly fund this program. I think
it would be helpful to have my colleague's reaction on that.
Mr. SMITH. The Senator is exactly right. There has been virtually
nothing taken off the table. The administration made a proposal for
funding this that had difficulties with our delegation, in selling off
public lands or other forest land. To me, the offset ought to be the
word of the United States, and ultimately the funding source is really
the American Treasury because the American Treasury gains so much from
Oregon, owns over half of Oregon, and contributes 7 percent to its
local governments. So you are absolutely right. There have been many
suggestions made. I have supported virtually all of them to try to
break through this logjam that we find in Congress. It has been a labor
of the greatest frustration for this Senator, and I know for you.
Now we have traded sides as to who is in the majority and who is in
the minority. My recourse in the minority is to do what I am doing, and
that is to look for every opportunity I can to speak for Oregon, to
slow down the Federal Government if necessary to get the Federal
Government to understand its obligation.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, one last question, if I might, for my
colleague. I appreciate his point with respect to the alternatives
because the administration offered a proposal, a selloff of national
treasures. I and others thought that was wrong. We went to work. Our
colleagues came up with alternatives. Senator Baucus and I found an
example in an area where Government contractors were not paying taxes
in a prompt way. There were questions about whether it made sense, at
least in the administration. Then they went off and took the revenues.
I think your point about how Democrats and Republicans have brought
alternatives with respect to how to pay for this program in the
Congress is an important one.
The last one I would like to have you lay out for the Senate is that
I want Senators to know that this is not some exercise on our part, in
terms of just plucking an arbitrary figure out of the air and saying:
By God, this is the money that we want for our State. As I understand
the presentation of the Senator, you are trying to lay out the history.
Mr. SMITH. I am.
Mr. WYDEN. The history goes back to the beginning of the last
century, essentially. Because the Federal Government owns more than
half of our land, we historically received payments for essential
services--schools, police and the like--that were based on timber
receipts. Now that the environmental laws have changed, those funds are
not there.
So, as I understand it, the presentation that my colleague is making
today is based on the idea that this is not about Oregon's seeking some
kind of arbitrary figure that we basically would like to offer up as
kind of a wish list or to try to get through because we will try to
bull it through, but that it is really based on history. It is based on
a historical formula that stems from the fact that the Federal
Government owns most of the land. Is that essentially the kind of
historical viewpoint that my colleague is trying to bring to the
Senate?
Mr. SMITH. Absolutely. I will be making it several more times in this
presentation--5 hours condensed into an hour and a half, I suppose. But
when you and Senator Craig first cut the deal--and I was an original
cosponsor with you--you had to have a basis for the money, the formula
for distributing it. You all wisely came up with what is the historical
timber harvest on Federal lands. That made sense. It makes logical
sense. It is defensible. Now some of our neighboring Senators don't
like that deal anymore. They want to change that. They would like to
ignore that history, but that is the basis of the formula for these
secure county schools payments. It is literally replacing the money
lost from the way Oregon historically operated in collaboration with
the Federal Government. The terms were changed. The terms were changed
in the 1990s.
There is a cost to not harvesting timber. The rest of the country
wants us not to harvest timber, but there is a cost to not doing that,
and the cost is borne by humans, by local governments. I think it is a
dastardly thing on the Federal Government's part to walk away from this
now, for it to change the terms and not care for the people impacted by
that.
Mr. WYDEN. One last question, if I might, Mr. President. Also, let me
also tell the Senate we are very pleased that the Senator from Vermont
has joined the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He is going to
hear us talking an awful lot in the committee about the county payments
legislation, but I just want to say tonight in the Senate I am very
pleased the Senator from Vermont has come to the Senate, and we are
glad to have him on the committee.
The last question I would pose to my colleague deals, again, with the
urgency of all of this, so the Senate is clear on this. I think there
is always a sense that sometimes you come to the floor and there is a
little bit of an alarmist kind of approach.
My understanding is in our home State, from county officials, there
are pink slips going out now. There are budgets that are being made now
that are going to be very hard to alter. I appreciate my colleague's
presentation over the last bit, and I enjoyed the earlier one as well,
and I felt it was an important presentation.
What exactly is taking place? So the Senate is up on this in terms of
county budgets, layoff notices, and the kind of pain--that is what this
is really all about, the pain we are seeing working families and
citizens going through--what exactly is taking place as these budget
choices are being made?
Mr. SMITH. The Senator is exactly right in his description of the
local pain and the bewilderment of many public employees who work in
the counties and need to make mortgage payments, want their kids
educated, and would like their neighborhoods kept safe. They are
getting pink slips as we speak.
This act expired in September of last year. The money runs out in
June. The last two vehicles you and I have to fix this is the CR or the
emergency supplemental. My good friend, my senior colleague, is doing
exactly what I was doing when I was in the majority, and that is
meeting with chairmen, meeting with the leader, describing the
intensity of the problem and the moral importance of this for the
Federal Government to keep its word. It was an experience in great
frustration.
Now I am in the minority, and I am left to stall, throw wrenches in
the works, make the moral case. I will continue to do that. You and I,
as we have done since our earliest days in the Senate, will work in
tandem because, when it comes to Oregon's interests, between Senator
Wyden and myself, politics stop at the State border. This is a perfect
example of it. We have two shots.
Mr. WYDEN. I thank my colleague for his presentation. I hope the
entire Senate followed this discussion--that our whole country does.
I yield the floor.
Mr. SMITH. In 1976, shortly after the Endangered Species Act became
law, an Oregon State graduate student named Eric Forsman published a
master's thesis.
It surmised that the spotted owls of Oregon were ``declining as a
result of habitat loss.'' The study caused a sensation among the
environmental community, which was looking for an Endangered Species
test case.
By 1988, the environmental activists had defined their battle--to
preserve, ``old growth forests.'' In their own words, these activists
needed a ``surrogate'' species--one that lived in and needed old growth
for its habitat. At a law clinic in 1988, one activist stated:
Thanks to the work of Walt Disney, and Bambi and his
friends . . . wildlife enjoys substantive statutory
protection. While the northern spotted owl is the wildlife
species
[[Page S1841]]
of choice to act as the surrogate for old growth protection,
and I've often thought ``thank goodness the spotted owl
evolved in the Northwest, for if it hadn't we'd have to
genetically engineer it.'' It's a perfect species for use as
a surrogate. First of all, it is unique to old growth
forests. And there's no credible scientific dispute on that
fact. Second of all, it uses a lot of old growth. That's
convenient because we can use it to protect a lot of old
growth.
And ``convenient'' it was to those seeking to end timber harvest in
Oregon. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service was forced to
review the status of the spotted owl in 1982 and again in 1987.
In both instances it found that a listing under the Endangered
Species Act was not warranted. In 1986, an Audubon Society report
stated that the spotted owl population was teetering toward the
doomsday number of 1500 pairs.
Further reviews by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1989 and 1990
proposed that it should be listed as threatened throughout its range--
northern California, Oregon and Washington.
By 1989, environmental litigants had secured a court injunction on
BLM timber sales near spotted owl sites. My predecessor, Senator Mark
Hatfield, and Senator Brock Adams of Washington intervened that same
year.
They passed what was called the ``Northwest Compromise''--also known
as the ``section 318 rider.'' This rider required the BLM and Forest
Service to map out ecologically significant old growth stands for
interim protection, while insulating federal timber sales outside those
areas from litigation challenges.
I would like to read from a floor statement Senator Hatfield gave
that year:
For those who like to isolate themselves in a little cocoon
and talk about theoretical and esoteric subjects, let us not
forget we are talking about human problems. That leads back
to a common denominator which is the adequacy or inadequacy
to house human beings. There may come a time when we will
have to opt for a choice between an owl and a human being,
but let me tell you in this proposal today we do not have to
make that choice.
We have opted to continue studying the owl as a threatened
species, and there is nothing in this report that in any way
impinges upon the Endangered Species Act. But at the same
time we are sensitive to human need. In my 30 years as a
governor and Senator, I have often found myself in the eye of
the storm when I have been accused by some of trying to
preserve too much of our natural resources for posterity,
including seashores, including the Columbia River Gorge,
including wild and scenic rivers and including wilderness.
On the other hand, I often find myself in the eye of the
storm from those representing the environmental community who
think somehow we have sacrificed the spotted owl for timber
production.
Mr. President, the facts will not bear that out. I think
sometimes that striking the balance is the most impossible
political stance to take. It is far easier to line up with
one side or the other. To try to strike a balance in anyone
of these controversial areas, particularly as it represents
economic and human need on one side and they need to preserve
unique areas of our God-created Earth on the other, is very
difficult. I fear that too often we are adopting the single-
issue mentality that bubbles up to the top in many of these
groups today.
When you subscribe to that single-issue mentality, it is
not what you have done in the past or what you are trying to
do for the future; it is how you cross the t's and dot the
i's today, and it is a dogmatic mind that is very difficult
to try to find any kind of accommodation. Thank goodness, I
think that the minds of balance and the minds of many of
these people in both groups prevailed and made this
compromise possible.
So I want to say, Mr. President, we have made great
movement in trying to accommodate those from the
environmental community who have raised legitimate issues and
concerns.
Unfortunately, according to many of the statements coming
out of that community, it is not enough. On the other hand,
when I face in my State 70 communities that are totally
dependent on a 1- or 2-mill economy, I can say this: I look
forward not with anything but anxiety and concern that we are
going to see some of those communities so deeply impacted
that I may have to repeat an experience I had in Valsetz, OR.
On that occasion I gave the last high school commencement.
Instead of the usual smiles and laughter at such an event,
there were tears and sadness in the faces of the members of
that small timber-dependent community whose mill had recently
closed. In 2 weeks the bulldozers came in, and today there is
not a sign left of community life because we are now finding
the underbrush taking over.
We face that reality in our State. It is awfully easy for
people from other States to say, oh, well we have to do this
and that. But I have to concern myself with representing the
people who have to put bread on the table of their children,
and to cut it off abruptly, without any consideration for the
human needs, to me, is cruelty.
If we want to reduce our timber sales level by half, all
right. But let us have a prospective goal, and give time to
re-train those employees, give time to readjust those
communities, give time to those human needs, but to do it as
proposed by various members of the environmental community is
to do it without human concern.
Following Senator Hatfield's action in the Senate, the House
Agriculture Committee ordered the creation of a team of scientists--
forest experts--to analyze and report on the management of old growth
forests within the range of the spotted owl.
This group came to be known as the ``Gang of Four.'' Their report
found that the amount and distribution of old growth forests in the
Pacific Northwest was insufficient to support both current timber
harvest level and the viability of the spotted owl.
The Gang of Four presented 14 management alternatives, from the
status quo to massive set asides of old growth reserves.
Congress considered many of these alternatives, but acted on none of
them.
In 1990, the hammer finally fell. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
formally listed the northern spotted owl as ``threatened'' under the
Endangered Species Act.
A federal court soon ordered the agency to declare critical habitat
for the spotted owl in western Oregon and Washington and northern
California. A spotted owl recovery team was appointed in 1992.
The year that the spotted owl was listed, 1990, Time Magazine ran
this cover story.
It read:
Who Gives a Hoot?
The timber industry says that saving this spotted owl will
cost 30,000 jobs. It isn't that simple.
When this story ran, the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Gore, came to
this floor to with the magazine in hand.
The distinguished Senator stated:
Why would Time magazine do a cover story on the spotted
owl, to say it is not that simple? Because the issue has been
misunderstood, and it is not that simple.
Well, Senator Gore and Time Magazine were right. The battle between
loggers and owls wasn't that simple. The economic fallout under the
forthcoming Clinton-Gore administration would be far worse. And despite
draconian federal actions, the owl would not be saved.
Following the ESA listing of the spotted owl, biologists and
foresters within the federal government began their own war with each
other. With critical habitat in place, the Fish and Wildlife Service
warned the BLM that its planned timber sales would jeopardize the
survival of the spotted owl.
In October 1991, Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan convened the
Endangered Species Committee--also known as the ``God Squad.'' The God
Squad consisted of three cabinet-level appointees and one
representative from the State of Oregon. They convened a month of
evidentiary hearings in Portland, OR with 97 witnesses.
The God Squad decided to exempt several of the BLM's timber sales
from ESA guidelines, while also requiring the agency to implement the
draft spotted owl recovery plan in other areas.
Without a final recovery plan, however, litigants seized the
opportunity to shut down the remaining timber sales. Blanket
injunctions were issued by Federal courts in 1991 and 1992, finally
bringing western Oregon's Federal timber program to a complete
deadfall.
This chart shows timber harvest on each of Oregon's thirteen National
Forests. The Willamette National Forest alone was producing nearly a
billion board feet of timber a year. By 1992, it was in a free-fall to
near zero, where it remains today.
Think of the economy. think of the human consequences. But maybe we
saved the owl. We will get to that.
Enter the presidential campaign between George Herbert Walker Bush
and the Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. Both candidates made
numerous visits to the Pacific Northwest. Bush lamented to loggers the
situation that had unfurled on his watch. Clinton promised labor unions
that he would convene a ``forest summit'' to resolve the problem and
end the gridlock.
In April 1993, President Bill Clinton did just that--at least insofar
as the ``summit.'' In Portland, OR the president convened his Vice-
President, Al
[[Page S1842]]
Gore, along with the Secretaries of Agriculture, Interior, Labor, and
Commerce, plus the EPA Administrator, the Deputy Director of the Office
of Management and Budget, and his Science and Technology Advisor.
At the conclusion of the eight-hour, televised summit, President
Clinton announced a 60-day deadline by which his Cabinet would craft a
plan to break the Pacific Northwest's forest impasse.
He said that his goal was to develop a policy based on principles
that would
Produce a predictable and sustainable level of timber sales
that will not degrade or destroy our forest environment.
That plan would come to be known as the ``Northwest Forest Plan.'' It
called for the set aside of 88 percent of federal forests within the
range of the spotted owl. The ``predictable and sustainable'' level of
timber would come from the remaining 12 percent of the landscape. This
amounted to 1.1 billion board feet a year--a 78 percent reduction from
historic levels. But it was more than zero, which is what we had. So we
were happy. We would get 1.1, even though there used to be 8 billion.
In all honesty, both trenches in the timber war shirked at the
Northwest Forest Plan. The timber industry did not want to codify such
a dramatic drop in federal timber sales.
Environmentalists objected to the fact that the Plan explicitly
relied on some old growth harvest to meet its volume prediction.
Nonetheless, the Northwest Forest Plan--and its equivalent in eastern
Oregon, the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project--
became the law of the land, without a single vote in Congress. The Plan
was implemented through administrative rulemaking and blessed by
federal judges.
Nonetheless, federal timber sales remained gridlocked in court.
Harvest levels were still dropping. Mills were still closing.
Unemployment lines were still growing. Oregon was no better off.
The year Oregon cast its electoral ballots for Bill Clinton a second
time, in 1996, it also elected to send me to the United States Senate.
Holding the Clinton Administration to its own promise to Oregon was a
primary directive from my constituents. And I did what I could.
I pleaded with Clinton Administration officials to fully fund its own
Northwest Forest Plan. It never did.
I fought off efforts in this chamber to slash funding from the
federal timber sale program. And the Senate never did.
The time between 1996 and 2000 was a grueling and frustrating fight.
While the president lamented the poverty in Appalachia, his
administration was creating it in Oregon.
It became obvious very quickly that the promise of the Clinton
Northwest Forest Plan was a ruse--sabotaged by its own architects at
every political turn.
When George W. Bush took office in 2001, he agreed to make good on
Bill Clinton's 1993 commitment. His administration has tried to fix the
Northwest Forest Plan, to fund it and to implement it.
Unfortunately, the current president's efforts have been stifled by
federal courts.
Northwest Forest Plan timber harvest under President Bush has been
consistently lower than under President Clinton. And it has never risen
above 30 percent of what Bill Clinton promised Oregon 13 years ago.
These are the legal and political facts of the case. Let me take a
moment to describe the human, social and economic casualties of the
timber war.
Between 1989 and 2003, 213 lumber mills in Oregon were closed, some
permanently. I'd like to read you the list:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Employees
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simpson Timber Co......................... Albany..................... Plywood................... 200
Stone Forest Industries................... Albany..................... Sawmill................... 286
Weyerhaeuser.............................. Albany..................... Sawmill................... 39
Willamette--Duraflake..................... Albany..................... Sawmill................... ...........
Alicel..................... Sawmill................... ...........
Croman Corporation........................ Ashland.................... Sawmill................... ...........
Astoria Plywood........................... Astoria.................... Plywood................... 300
Ellingson Lumber Co....................... Baker City................. Sawmill................... 152
Bandon..................... Sawmill................... ...........
Beavercreek................ Sawmill................... ...........
Crown Pacific............................. Bend....................... Sawmill................... ...........
Weyerhaeuser.............................. Bend....................... Particle board............ 111
Vanport Manufacturing..................... Boring..................... Sawmill................... 180
Carver..................... Sawmill................... ...........
Cascade Cascade Locks Lumber.............. Cascade Locks.............. Sawmill................... 44
Rough & Ready Lumber...................... Cave Junction.............. Sawmill................... ...........
Central Point Lumber...................... Central Point.............. Sawmill................... ...........
Double Dee Lumber......................... Central Point.............. Sawmill................... 40
Tree Source............................... Central Point.............. Sawmill................... ...........
Chiloquin.................. Sawmill................... ...........
Beaver Lumber............................. Clatskanie................. Sawmill................... 70
Coburg..................... Sawmill................... ...........
Coos Bay Mill............................. Coos Bay................... Sawmill................... ...........
Weyerhaeuser.............................. Coos Bay................... Sawmill................... 175
Weverhaeuser--Dellwood Logging............ Coos Bay................... Sawmill................... 40
Georgia Pacific........................... Coquille................... Sawmill................... 340
Brand-S Corporation....................... Corvallis.................. Sawmill................... 6
Leading Plywood........................... Corvallis.................. Plywood................... 46
Midway Engineered Wood Products........... Corvallis.................. Sawmill................... 50
Superior Hardwoods........................ Corvallis.................. Sawmill................... 40
Cascade Lumber............................ Cottage Grove.............. Sawmill................... 40
Starflre Lumber Co........................ Cottage Grove.............. Sawmill................... 30
Weverhaeuser.............................. Cottage Grove.............. Sawmill................... 235
Cress Ply................................. Creswell................... Plywood................... 65
Bohemia................................... Culp Creek................. Sawmill................... 225
Cushman.................... Sawmill................... ...........
Diversified Fiber Corp.................... Dairy...................... Sawmill................... 70
Weyerhaeuser.............................. Dalles..................... Sawmill................... ...........
Roseburg Forest Products.................. Dillard.................... Sawmill................... 275
Roseburg Forest Products.................. Dillard.................... Plywood................... ...........
Dixonville................. Sawmill................... ...........
Drain...................... Sawmill................... ...........
Eddyville.................. Sawmill................... ...........
Boise Cascade............................. Elgin...................... Stud Mill................. 37
Boise Cascade............................. Elgin...................... Sawmill................... ...........
Great Western Pellet Mills................ Enterprise................. Pellets................... 14
Estacada Forest Products.................. Estacada................... Sawmill................... ...........
Cuddeback Lumber.......................... Eugene..................... Sawmill................... 75
Falcon Manufacturing...................... Eugene..................... Sawmill................... 120
Seneca Sawmill............................ Eugene..................... Sawmill................... 24
Springfield Forest Products............... Eugene..................... Sawmill................... 60
WTD Industries............................ Eugene..................... Sawmill................... 55
WTD Industries............................ Eugene..................... Veneer.................... 80
Zip-O-Log Mills........................... Eugene..................... Sawmill................... 30
Forest Grove............... Sawmill................... ...........
Foster..................... Sawmill................... ...........
International Paper....................... Gardiner................... P&P....................... ...........
Willamette--Bohemia....................... Gardiner................... Sawmill................... 280
Gregory Forest Products................... Glendale................... Plywood................... 25
Gold Beach Plywood, Inc................... Gold Beach................. Plywood................... 315
Cone Lumber Co............................ Goshen..................... Sawmill................... 69
Goshen Veneer............................. Goshen..................... Veneer.................... 53
Fourply Lumber............................ Grants Pass................ Sawmill................... 200
Medford Corporation....................... Grants Pass................ Plywood................... 170
U.S. Forest Industries.................... Grants Pass................ Sawmill................... 200
Spalding & Son............................ Grants Pass................ Sawmill................... 160
Olympic Mill (Interforest)................ Gresham.................... Veneer.................... 44
WI--Cascade Logging....................... Griggs..................... Sawmill................... 32
DG Mouldings.............................. Harrisburg................. Sawmill................... 95
Noble & Bittner Plug Co................... Hebo....................... Sawmill................... 19
[[Page S1843]]
Kinzua-Heppner Mill....................... Heppner.................... Sawmill................... 135
Frontier Forest Products.................. Heppner.................... Sawmill................... ...........
Louisiana Pacific......................... Hines...................... Sawmill................... 116
Snow Mountain Pine Ltd.................... Hines...................... Sawmill................... 260
Hanel Lumber.............................. Hood River................. Sawmill................... 138
Green Veneer, Inc......................... Idanha..................... Veneer.................... ...........
Idanha..................... Sawmill................... ...........
Peacock Lumber Co......................... Imbler..................... Sawmill................... 25
Mountain Fir.............................. Independence............... Chip Mill................. 45
Jasper..................... Sawmill................... ...........
Malheur Lumber............................ John Day................... Sawmill................... 30
Boise Cascade............................. Joseph..................... Sawmill................... 52
Joseph Timber............................. Joseph..................... Sawmill................... 70
R-Y Timber, Inc........................... Joseph..................... Sawmill................... 68
Junction City Lumber (WTD)................ Junction City.............. Sawmill................... 102
Circle D.................................. Klamath Falls.............. Chip Mill................. ...........
Collins Products.......................... Klamath Falls.............. Plywood................... ...........
Klamath Veneer............................ Klamath Falls.............. Veneer.................... 50
Modoc Lumber.............................. Klamath Falls.............. Sawmill................... 169
Roseburg Forest Products.................. Klamath Falls.............. Sawmill................... 680
Weyerhaeuser.............................. Klamath Falls.............. Sawmill................... ...........
American Precision Millwork............... Lakeview................... Sawmill................... 27
Goose Lake Lumber......................... Lakeview................... Sawmill................... 60
Lakeview Lumber........................... Lakeview................... Sawmill................... 60
Langlois................... Sawmill................... ...........
Lebanon Mill.............................. Lebanon.................... .......................... ...........
White Plywood............................. Lebanon.................... Plywood................... 180
WI--Lebanon Plywood....................... Lebanon.................... Plywood................... 125
Linnton Plywood........................... Linnton.................... Plywood................... 235
Blue Mountain Forest...................... Long Creek................. Sawmill................... 20
Madras..................... Sawmill................... ...........
Mapleton................... Sawmill................... ...........
Maupin..................... Sawmill................... ...........
Boise Cascade............................. Medford.................... Plywood................... 450
Boise Cascade............................. Medford.................... Veneer.................... ...........
Pine Products............................. Prineville................. Sawmill................... 97
Crown Pacific............................. Prinville.................. Sawmill................... ...........
Cascade Pine Specialties.................. Redmond.................... Sawmill................... 60
Crown Pacific............................. Redmond.................... Sawmill................... 214
DAW Forest Products....................... Redmond.................... Sawmill................... 45
International Paper....................... Reedsport.................. Sawmill................... 80
International Paper....................... Gardiner................... P&P....................... 325
C & D Lumber.............................. Riddle..................... Sawmill................... 80
Louisiana Pacific......................... Rogue River................ Veneer.................... ...........
Medford Corporation....................... Rogue River................ Veneer.................... 75
California Cedar Products................. Roseburg................... Sawmill................... 50
Champion (Seneca Timber).................. Roseburg................... Plywood................... 260
P&M Cedar Products........................ Roseburg................... Sawmill................... ...........
Pacific Chips............................. Roseburg................... Chip Mill................. 36
Roseburg Forest Products.................. Roseburg................... Sawmill................... 42
Willamette Industries..................... Saginaw.................... Sawmill................... 62
Diamond Pacific Milling/Dry Kilns......... Salem...................... Sawmill................... 15
North Santiam Plywood..................... Salem...................... Plywood................... 100
Kohl Lumber............................... Seaside.................... Sawmill................... 13
Taylor Lumber & Treating.................. Sheridan................... Sawmill................... ...........
Silverton Forest Products................. Silverton.................. Sawmill................... 65
Georgia Pacific........................... Springfield................ Plvwood................... 250
Nicolai Company........................... Springfield................ Sawmill................... 163
Oregon Cedar Products..................... Springfield................ Sawmill................... 80
Springfield Forest Products............... Springfield................ Sawmill................... 200
Stone Forest Industries................... Springfield................ Sawmill................... 53
Weyerhaeuser.............................. Springfield................ Sawmill................... 270
Weyerhaeuser Pulp and Paper............... Springfield................ P&P....................... 520
Weyerhaeuser.............................. Springfield................ P&P....................... 140
Pacific Western Forest Products........... St. Helens................. Plywood................... 288
St. Helens Mill........................... St. Helens................. .......................... ...........
Weyerhaeuser.............................. Stayton.................... LVL Plant................. 43
Sutherlin.................. Sawmill................... ...........
Linn Forest Products...................... Sweet Home................. Sawmill................... 95
Weyerhaeuser.............................. Sweet Home................. Sawmill................... 81
WI--Foster Sawmill........................ Sweet Home................. Sawmill................... 44
WI--Midway Veneer......................... Sweet Home................. Veneer.................... 80
Willamette Industries..................... Sweet Home................. Plywood................... 168
Swisshome.................. Sawmill................... ...........
WTD....................................... Tillamook.................. Sawmill................... 30
Wheeler Manu. (Conf. Tribes of Siletz).... Toledo..................... Sawmill................... 90
American Hardwoods........................ Tualatin................... Sawmill................... 166
Tygh Valley................ Sawmill................... ...........
WTD Industries............................ Union...................... Sawmill................... 80
Vaughn..................... Sawmill...................
C B Cedar Co.............................. Medford.................... Sawmill................... 50
Eugene F. Burrill Lumber Co............... Medford.................... Sawmill................... 112
KOGAP..................................... Medford.................... Sawmill................... 200
Medford Corporation....................... Medford.................... Sawmill................... 320
Miller Redwood............................ Merlin..................... Sawmill................... 85
Bugaboo Timber............................ Mill City.................. Sawmill................... 50
Green Veneer.............................. Mill City.................. Veneer.................... 40
Young & Morgan............................ Mill City.................. Sawmill................... ...........
Simpson Timber Co......................... Millersburg................ Sawmill................... 200
Murphy Co................................. Milwaukie.................. Sawmill................... 97
Avison Lumber Co.......................... Molalla.................... Sawmill................... ...........
Brazier Forest Industries................. Molalla.................... Stud Mill................. 83
Murphy Creek Lumber Co.................... Murphy..................... Sawmill................... 24
Myrtle Point............... Sawmill................... ...........
North Bend................. Sawmill................... ...........
North Plains............... Sawmill................... ...........
Tree Source............................... North Powder............... Sawmill................... ...........
Norway..................... Sawmill................... ...........
Evergreen Forest Products................. Oakland.................... Sawmill................... 480
Bald Knob................................. Oakridge................... Sawmill................... 140
Pope & Talbot............................. Oakridge................... Sawmill................... 370
Pope & Talbot............................. Oakridge................... Sawmill................... 20
Ophir...................... Sawmill................... ...........
Stimson Lumber............................ Oregon City................ Sawmill................... 85
Caffal Brothers........................... Oregon City................ Sawmill................... ...........
Paisley.................... Sawmill................... ...........
Pedee...................... Sawmill................... ...........
Diamond B Georaia Pacific)................ Philomath.................. Sawmill................... 155
Philomath Wood Products................... Philomath.................. Sawmill................... 106
Tree Source Pac/Soft...................... Philomath.................. Sawmill................... ...........
Tree Source/Phil. FP...................... Philomath.................. Sawmill................... ...........
Special Products of Oregon................ Phoenix.................... Sawmill................... 80
Louisiana Pacific......................... Pilot Rock................. Sawmill................... 60
Boise Cascade............................. Portland................... R&D....................... 55
[[Page S1844]]
Felt Mill................................. Portland................... .......................... ...........
Portland Mill............................. Portland................... .......................... ...........
Weyerhaeuser.............................. Headquarters............... Admin..................... 345
Prairie City............... Sawmill................... ...........
Crown Pacific Ltd......................... Prineville................. Sawmill................... 36
Crown Pacific Ltd......................... Prineville................. Sawmill................... 60
D & E Wood Products....................... Prineville................. Sawmill................... 15
Northwest Pacific Moulding & Cutstock..... Prineville................. Moulding.................. 18
Ochoco.................................... Prineville................. Sawmill................... 80
Ochoco Lumber............................. Prineville................. Sawmill................... 100
International Paper....................... Veneta..................... Sawmill................... 100
Waldport................... Sawmill................... ...........
Rogge Wood Products....................... Wallowa.................... Sawmill................... 30
Wallowa Forest Products................... Wallowa.................... Sawmill................... 50
Warm Springs FP........................... Warm Springs............... Sawmill................... ...........
Warrento Lumber Products.................. Warrengton................. Sawmill................... 147
Boise Cascade............................. White City................. Veneer.................... 30
Burrill Lumber Co......................... White City................. Sawmill................... ...........
Double Dee Lumber Co...................... White City................. Sawmill................... 20
Medco..................................... White City................. Sawmill................... ...........
Medford Corporation....................... White City................. Sawmill................... ...........
Medite Corporation........................ White City................. Sawmill................... 80
Conifer Plywood Co........................ Willamina.................. Plywood................... 158
Williams Sawmill...................... Williams................... Sawmill................... ...........
Winchester Sawmill.................... Winchester................. Sawmill................... ...........
Weyerhaeuser.............................. Winston.................... LVL Plant................. 37
Weyerhaeuser.............................. Wood Burn.................. Sawmill................... 57
Yoncalla Timber Products (WTD)............ Yoncalla................... Sawmill................... 45
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It goes on
and on. These mill closures manifest themselves in the most horrific
human ways. It is more than just loss of logging and truck driving jobs
and destroyed communities in places I have mentioned. Thirty-five
thousand Oregonians in the forest products industry lost their jobs in
the 1990s--35,000. I remember those dark days. The year the Federal
courts shut down the woods, I was elected as State Senator from
Pendleton, OR. At the time there was talk that Oregon had to move on
from the boom-and-bust cycle of Federal timber sales. There was talk
that we could swap out jobs in the Douglas fir forests for ones in the
silicon forest.
Such talk seems so hollow now. But of the 35,000 Oregonians who lost
their jobs in the woods and in the lumber mills, nearly half of them
never found work again in our State. They either moved to another
State, retired or remained chronically unemployed. Those who did find
other work ended up with lower wages than they earned a decade before.
Mr. President, 450 workers out of 35,000, just 1 percent, joined the
high-tech industry.
Not surprisingly, high unemployment in Oregon led to higher hunger
rates. Between 1999 and 2001 Oregon had the Nation's highest incidence
of hunger. Now my State faces a new epidemic, that of methamphetamine.
But we might ask, how is the owl doing? The answer may surprise you.
It infuriates me.
The spotted owl has become one of the most intensely studied species
on earth. Ten years of research and more than 1,000 published studies
detail the threats to its survival, but none is conclusive.
Most recently, in 2004, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reviewed
the status of the northern spotted owl. It did so at the request not of
environmentalists, but the timber industry--who wanted to know if the
shut-down of the forests had actually worked.
The status review introduced a new antagonist to the saga. Not the
logger, but another owl. The barred owl is not native to the Pacific
Northwest. It is larger, more aggressive, more successful in predation
and reproduces faster than the spotted owl.
No one knows for sure how the barred owl made its way to the
Northwest from the east coast. Some biologists believe that,
ironically, the growth and planting of trees across the Great Plains
created a ``tree bridge'' for the barred owl to traverse the nation and
into spotted owl habitat.
The Fish and Wildlife Service report found, quote:
Barred owls react more aggressively towards northern
spotted owls than the reverse. There are also a few instances
of barred owl aggression and predation on northern spotted
owls. The information collected to date indicates that
encounters between these two species tend to be agonistic in
nature, and that the outcome is unlikely to favor the
northern spotted owl. Given this relationship, barred owls
may be able to displace or preempt northern spotted owls from
territories. Further, use of more diverse habitat types and
prey, may confer some competitive advantage to barred owls
over northern spotted owls with respect to reproductive
output.
The report cited empirical evidence that barred owls were killing the
spotted owl. Here is a biologist's account of one such incident:
On 11 May 1997 at approximately 14:30 Leskiw found a
freshly (blood fresh and wet) killed Spotted Owl along a
trail in Redwood National Park, Humboldt County, California.
Two sets of feathers were found within 60 meters of the body.
The owl was decapitated, but the head could not be located.
Additionally, what appeared to be several Spotted Owl
feathers were seen in a tree 4 meters above the ground.
Finally, the ground litter was disturbed in a 2 meter radius
around the carcass, suggesting a struggle had occurred.
Leskiw left the area and returned at approximately 15:30.
When he returned to the kill site at 15:45, a Barred Owl
spontaneously hooted nearby. . . . Gutierrez necropsied the
Spotted Owl. The bird's head had been removed by
disarticulation of the cervical vertebrae. The muscle from
the left side of the bird's breast, side, and wing were
eaten. These lines of circumstantial evidence combine to
suggest that a Barred Owl indeed killed and partially
consumed this Spotted Owl.
One writer put the relationship between barred and spotted owl more
eloquently. She wrote:
A new twist emerges in the turf war over Pacific Northwest
forests as a new adversary invades the remaining haunts of
the threatened spotted owl.
Just before dawn, a chill fog drifts through the old-growth
redwoods of northwestern California. A group of birders
breathe out puffs of steam as they listen to the growing
chorus of morning birdsong. Then the gentle sounds of
kinglets and thrushes are buried under a torrent of avian
rock 'n' roll as the wild, intense hoots of a barred owl ring
out.
It is one of the first recorded sightings of this species
in this part of California. A couple of months later an
agitated barred owl will be found perched near the body of a
freshly killed spotted owl in Redwood National Park, near the
Oregon border, feathers of his presumed victim stuck in his
talons. The latest turf war in the Pacific Northwest has
reached redwood country.
Dark-eyed woodland species, the barred owl and spotted owl
are cousins that look so similar that novice birders have
trouble telling them apart. Until recently, the two birds
never met. The barred owl haunted forests east of the Great
Plains, while the spotted owl lived only in old conifer
forests of the Pacific Northwest. Now the barred owl is on
the move--and it is moving in on the threatened spotted owl.
Eric Forsman, the Oregon State University masters student who wrote
the first major opus on the decline of the spotted owl in 1976, is now
a biologist for the Forest Service and a leading researcher of the
barred owl. He recently commented:
For the last thirty years we've been trying to come up with
ways of protecting the spotted owl, and now all of a sudden,
this huge monkey wrench gets thrown into the works. In the
past, we could assume that what we were seeing in terms of
habitat would help us to understand what was happening with
the spotted owl. Now we don't know if spotted owls aren't
there because there is no habitat for them or because of the
barred owls.
A spokesperson for the Audubon Society, which led the charge to set
aside spotted owl habitat in the 1980s and 90s, reacted to news of the
barred owl by simply stating: ``We are ambivalent.''
Biologists, too, are perplexed over another question: why more old
growth forest has resulted in fewer spotted owls.
A ten year review of the Clinton Northwest Forest Plan found that
there are 600,000 more acres of old
[[Page S1845]]
growth in western Oregon and Washington than there was a decade ago.
However, the sharpest decline in spotted owl populations actually
occurred where the least amount of federal timber harvest took place
namely the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. This is also the
location of the greatest number of barred owls.
The spotted owl actually increased its population in southern
Oregon--where the most federal harvest activity took place, and had the
smallest incidence of barred owl invasion.
One thing is for certain--the future of the spotted owl is not only
affected by the teeth of chainsaws, but in the bloody talon of the
barred owl.
And there is a third twist. Forest fires are decimating spotted owl
habitat. Over 100,000 acres of spotted owl habitat was severely burned
over the last 10 years. Now, we don't clear-cut for human use, we just
burn it all in wildfires.
This is the Biscuit Fire, the largest fire in Oregon's history, the
most expensive to fight in Forest Service history, costing in excess of
$150 million. Shoot, folks, with $150 million we could take care of all
the problems I am talking about with Oregon counties. The Biscuit Fire
incinerated 65,000 acres of the spotted owl habitat as seen in this
picture. This is more than four times the amount affected by timber
sales in the 50 years preceding the fire. One notable difference is
that areas harvested were replanted.
So after 15 years of not logging old growth, growing new growth, and
burning ``protected'' old growth, the Federal Government doesn't know
what to do for the spotted owl. After 15 years since its listing under
the ESA, the Federal Government does not even have a recovery plan for
the spotted owl. And now we are hearing from the Federal Government it
doesn't have much of a plan for the people whose lives were ruined.
As I stand here today, it is also clear that the Federal Government
doesn't know what to do with these communities in the wake of its
failed management decisions.
Let me also mention a fourth impact. This should be of particular
interest to those Members concerned about the outsourcing of U.S. jobs
and industries to other countries. As wood production fell on the
Federal timberlands, it was replaced--board foot by board foot--by the
Canadian Government in its ``Crown Lands.'' Does anyone think the
spotted owl knows the difference between the United States and Canadian
borders? I don't think they know. But what we are doing now is not
harvesting our land. What we are doing now is burning our land, and the
Canadians are overcutting their lands.
This trend is mirrored in reverse by the blue line on this chart,
showing Canadian lumber imports into this country.
The green and blue lines diverge in 1990--the years the spotted owl
was listed as threatened. The flood of Canadian imports met the ever-
growing U.S. demand for lumber.
So instead of milling our lumber, harvested from our own forests,
with our own environmental laws, we are exporting the impact and the
jobs to other countries--other countries with fewer environmental
protections and where forests regenerate more slowly.
For a further example of the outsourcing of our lumber industry, go
to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. With western timber locked up in court,
southern timber blown down in the storm, the administration actually
floated the idea of lowering tariffs on foreign imported lumber for the
Katrina rebuilding effort.
Needless to say, that concept did not move far. Plenty of lumber was
reproduced for the reconstruction. Much of it was salvaged, probably
from Mississippi and Louisiana.
The point here is that actions have consequences. If the United
States wants to consume wood, and it should, then it needs to recognize
where wood comes from. But if Americans don't want wood to come from
American forests, harvested under the strictest environmental
guidelines in the world, then let's face that reality. But the reality
has consequences.
I wonder if I can ask for an additional 15 minutes and that will be
all I will require.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. SMITH. I thank the Senator from Vermont for listening to me. I
have detailed for you the dramatic story of the Federal timber in
Oregon that serves as the backdrop for the issue at hand.
Beginning in the late 1980s, timber sales received the primary
funding source for the 25 Percent Fund and began a precipitous decline
for the reasons I have explained earlier. This plunge in receipts
intensified and then bottomed out at a much lower level in the 1990s.
The decline in receipts impacted rural communities in the West,
particularly communities in Washington, Oregon, northern California,
and Idaho.
For example, in fiscal year 1995, national forest revenues were $557
million, only 36 percent of fiscal year 1989 peak revenues of $1.531
billion. In fiscal year 2004 national forest revenues were $281
million. That is from ``billions'' to ``millions.''
Payments to many States under the 25 Percent Fund Act declined by an
average of 70 percent from 1986 through 1998. These are national
figures. Those in Oregon were far more severe, reflecting the drastic
fall in the timber sales program.
The problem was compounded because 18 Oregon counties have different
revenue-sharing agreements with the Bureau of Land Management.
Mr. SANDERS. I ask the Senator to yield so I can do some
housekeeping.
Mr. SMITH. If I don't lose my place.
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