A Tree Grows in Tillamook

A small victory in the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday for the flickering timber industry in Oregon. In 2006 a local environmental group sued the Federal EPA claiming that logging roads had to have clean water discharge permits for all logging roads built. Federal law requires that a new factory or cattle feedlot, for example, get a permit showing that the project will not discharge polluted water into nearby streams. The law had never been applied to logging roads, however, and now this group wanted to extend the law, effectively shutting down any new log road building. This was aimed at state lands, which are still fairly productive, because these same environmental groups had already convinced the U.S. Forest service and the courts that you can't do anything with Federal forests.

The Supremes reversed the 9th Circuit (again) and ruled that these permits do not apply to logging roads, preserving the last few timber jobs in the state. I am sure the Greenies will be back with another equally specious argument. If I were another country wanting to conduct economic warfare against the United States I think one of my key weapons would be secretly funding lawsuits by these nut burgers.


www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/03/timber_industry_celebrates_sup.html#incart_more_business