Bill could allow the timber industry and counties to sue the state forester if it does not log as much as estimates provided by Department of Forestry specify
By April Ehrlich, Oregon Public Broadcasting
Lawmakers have moved forward a controversial logging bill that could open the state up to lawsuits if Oregon doesn’t log enough timber in a given year.
Representatives in the House Committee on Natural Resources unanimously advanced House Bill 3103 early Monday.
The bill would allow counties and the timber industry to sue the state forester if Oregon logs less than the Department of Forestry forecasts in its once-a-decade estimates.
There are exceptions if a large mass of trees are destroyed by wildfires, diseases or storms.
“Really, this is a timber industry way of creating more litigation against the state,” Cascadia Wildlands attorney Nick Cady said.
The Oregon Department of Forestry manages 745,000 acres of forestlands across 15 counties. Back in the late 1930s, counties reclaimed ownership of these lands after they went into foreclosure, but these forested areas couldn’t generate property taxes under county ownership. So state lawmakers reached deals with these counties, giving them the option to transfer these lands to the state in exchange for 64% of logging revenues in perpetuity.
Every decade, the Oregon Department of Forestry estimates how much timber it could log from state land for the next 10 years. Timber industry representatives and county officials say the department tends to over-promise and under deliver, making it difficult for them to plan ahead.
“This bill’s not a mandate to harvest more, it simply asks the department to say what they’re capable of doing, and then do it,” Branden Pursinger, executive director of the Council of Forest Trust Land Counties, said during the bill’s public hearing in early March.
Over 1,160 people submitted written testimony in response to the bill, and of those, 80% opposed it. Most of these opponents, including many environmental nonprofits, said they were concerned the bill would undermine state environmental regulations meant to protect threatened and endangered species — including the state’s Western Habitat Conservation Plan, which is awaiting federal approval.
The bill’s five sponsors — all Republicans — added an amendment ahead of Monday’s work session. The addition preserves the state’s ability to implement other environmental regulations, like the Habitat Conservation Plan. That placated the environmental nonprofit Wild Salmon Center, which moved its stance to neutral with this amendment. That was enough to pull some Democrats in the committee to vote for the bill.
“I am still uncomfortable with the judicial review that’s in the bill,” Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, said during Monday’s work session, commenting on the bill’s language around lawsuits. “But I do appreciate the good-spirited efforts to bring the Wild Salmon Center to neutral with changes in the bill, so I will support the bill.”
Some other conservation groups remain against the bill as it stands, including Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands.
“This is just going to create a kind of an endless stream of litigation for the foreseeable future,” Cady said. “I don’t think it’s in Oregonian’s interest to pay a bunch of timber industry lawyers and the state’s lawyers to fight a nonstop, continuous fight over state harvest levels.”
It’s a strange time to approve new laws that would impact the state forester, a position that is currently vacant. Interim deputy state forester Kate Skinner took over as acting state forester when Cal Mukumoto abruptly resigned in January.
HB 3103 now moves to the Ways and Means committee, which will decide whether to move it to the House floor for a full vote.
April Ehrlich is a reporter covering lands and environmental policies in Oregon and Southwest Washington at OPB. This article first appeared on opb.org.
