Oregon environmental groups will push for increased logging restrictions if a federal bill to boost harvest passes Congress.
Oregon environmental groups will push for increased logging restrictions if a federal bill to boost harvest passes Congress.
“We’re definitely looking at it. Oregon has the weakest forest practices on the West Coast,” said Oregon Wild Executive Director Sean Stevens. “If we start logging federal forests, you might see a shifting priority for private lands, and some of these private forest owners might not like that but they have sort of been given a free pass.”
A bill written by Reps. Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader and Greg Walden that would put about 1.6 million of Oregon’s 2.4 million acres of O&C land into a trust managed by the state for timber production could come to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote as early as next week. The bill also sets aside 90,000 new acres as protected wilderness areas and permanently bans the logging of old-growth forests.
Read more at OPB.
