Daily Triplicate - Bill Could Increase Logging Harvest

News Article

Nonprofit conservation organizations could potentially use bonds to buy private, working forests for sustainable harvesting if Congress adopts a bipartisan bill introduced last week.

U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson of California and Dave Reichert of Washington submitted the bill in hopes of providing a way to both protect land and allow timber harvesting to continue.

"The idea is to conserve forestlands for the purpose of cutting trees," Thompson said in a phone interview with The Daily Triplicate last week. His First Congressional District includes Del Norte County.

Thompson, a Democrat, said the proposed Community Forestry Conservation Act would mean "more trees in the future for sustainable forestry." He said the bill is a pro-job and pro-timber one, and that the local economy is dependent on healthy forests.

Reichert, a Republican, said this bill unites diverse interests behind shared goals.

"This important bill fosters needed public-private partnerships to meet the dual needs of conserving open spaces for future generations and sustaining the forest products jobs that depend on managing working forests," Reichert said in a press release.

Thompson said the U.S. Forest Service estimates that more than a million acres of the country's private forests are lost each year to land conversion and development. He said this bill could conserve an estimated 2.2 million acres of working forests.

The proposed bill would modify the tax code to allow municipal revenue bonds to be issued for the acquisition of forests by a qualified buyer, such as a nonprofit conservation group.

"We can issue tax-free bonds for people to buy forest property," Thompson said. "The money we get from cutting down the trees would be used to pay back the bonds."

The bill has the potential to create eight jobs for every 1,000 acres of forest that is purchased, Thompson said. He added that numerous organizations have already stepped forward to support the bill.

"I don't know anybody against it," Thompson said. "The Sierra Club supports it, the timber industry supports it and the carpenters' union supports it."

Athan Manuel, director of the lands protection program for the Sierra Club, said the bill is a win-win for jobs and conservation at no significant cost to taxpayers.

"Forest conservation bonds are an innovative tool that enables the forest conservation and timber industry communities to join together to purchase working forests, prevent their development and increase the level of environmental protection," Manuel said in a press release.

Thompson and Reichert have introduced this bill in past sessions of Congress -- including 2009 -- but it has never made it out of the House Committee on Ways and Means.

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