Statements On Introduced Bills And Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

By Mr. MERKLEY (for himself, Mr. Baucus, Mr. Wyden, and Mr. Tester):

S. 2791. A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to grant economy-related contract extensions of certain timber contracts between the Secretary of the Interior and timber purchasers, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by my colleagues Senators Ron Wyden, Max Baucus, and Jon Tester, as I introduce the Forest Harvest Opportunity Act. This legislation will provide a very simple, yet critical, solution to a significant problem currently facing timber communities across the country.

As we all know, rural communities across the country have been hit particularly hard by our current economic recession. The unemployment rate for rural counties is far greater than the national average; it surpasses 20 percent in many of the rural communities in my own home state. As my colleagues have heard me mention on numerous occasions, many of our rural communities have been doubly hurt by the current economic recession because they depend on harvests from federally-owned forest land as a major component of their economies. These communities have already been struggling because timber harvests on our Federal land have been declining, but they are facing even worse situations today because the collapse of the housing market has caused a precipitous drop in timber prices.

For some of our forestry companies, this creates an even worse situation: the contracts they have to harvest timber on Federal land are now worthless. Many of these contracts were signed with the Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management before the recession, when timber prices were still high. However, because of the decline in timber prices, harvesting today would cost forest companies more than the wood is worth and could cause ruinous problems for some of these companies.

The solution is simple common sense: allow companies to apply for additional time to harvest wood they have contracted for in times of unique economic circumstances. This simple change would allow these companies to delay the harvest until the price of timber had returned to a point that enabled the forest companies to earn a profit on the harvest. This change is not a novel idea. In fact, the Forest Service has rules in place allowing to do exactly that. Unfortunately, the Bureau of Land Management does not have similar rules in place. So, based simply on which agency a company has a contract with--and in Oregon Forest Service and BLM lands can be side-by-side--these companies may be forced to harvest timber at a loss or walk away from a contract they have won after a fair bidding process.

The Forest Harvest Opportunity Act provides a simple solution and allows these companies--and only companies who have contracts right now during the current recession--to petition for and receive an extension so they can harvest when timber prices return to a normal rate. This bill is a simple solution to address an important problem. Enacting this legislation would provide significant economic help for communities that are already among the hardest-hit by this economic downturn. I look forward to working with my colleagues for its passage.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the RECORD

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