Sen. MORSE: We need to build on our strengths

From Oregon Catalyst:  Sen. Frank Morse on the Senate Floor.

Sen. MORSE: We need to build on our strengths

Jobs? How about cutting some trees???

As Oregon's legislative session heads into the home stretch, leaders are desperately looking to take action to boost jobs.  Republicans, and some Democrats, are seeking to revive State Forest management bills that have been lying dormant for the past four months. 

Last week, Senate Republicans tried a parliamentary move on the Senate Floor to revive SB 464.  Unfortunately, the move failed on a 16-14 party-line vote.  SB 464, like HB 2001, would increase timber harvests on State-owned forestlands.  Timber sales could provide jobs for loggers, truckers, millworkers and merchants that provide for the timber industry and its employees.

Schools and counties would also benefit from increased timber harvests.  State forests are operating significantly below their sustained yield capacity, depriving schools and counties of much needed revenue and rural communities of critical jobs.

Oregon Senate rejects GOP attempt to increase logging in state forests

Structural Use of Wood Conference

From: American Forest Resources Council

A June 1 conference at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland will promote the use of Oregon wood products in commercial, industrial and institutional structures. StructureOregon 2011, a one day conference, is designed to boost the understanding of architects, engineers, designers, specifiers and other building-industry professionals of the potential innovative uses of locally sourced wood products.
StructureOregon 2011 is sponsored by the Oregon Wood Innovation Center, Oregon State University, Business Oregon, Umpqua Training & Employment, the Oregon Consortium & Oregon Workforce Alliance, and Worksource Oregon.  /Ann Forest Burns

For more information or for registration, visit http://www.structureoregon2011.com/

Timber Industry Leader Warns of Fiscal Crisis

Oregon's fiscal crisis: A budget built on illusions

Published: Saturday, April 30, 2011, 9:00 AM

By Andrew Miller

Like business managers everywhere, I've had to make critical and painful adjustments in the last three years to restructure my company to compete in the global economy. My company is smarter today than it was in 2007. Other top business managers I know say they've done the same thing.

But the private sector cannot completely retool itself to meet the competing demands of a deep recession and global competition unless those efforts are matched by the rest of society, especially the government.

So far, Oregon government has done the opposite. How could Oregon's budget have grown by 50 percent over the last four years while the American economy was essentially flat? Maybe that's why there's a deep division today -- between companies struggling to grow again after absorbing losses and downsizing, and our public sector, frozen on a course of continued growth and spending. Why has only the private sector been forced to restructure?

In life, we only make painful changes when we're forced to. The budget squeeze most Oregonians have felt for the past three years may finally be reaching the public sector. But change won't be achieved without a hard look at the numbers, without tough negotiation and without some real sacrifices.

In an attempt to solve Oregon's predicament, Gov. John Kitzhaber put forth a budget proposal that reflects our current revenue ($14.7 billion) and challenged the Legislature to balance the books and get state government back on track. The co-chairmen of the Joint Ways & Means Committee ironed out a budget architecture that uses Kitzhaber's revenue premise, funds education first and leaves an ending balance of $460 million in case our future revenue numbers fall short.

After education gets its funding and the ending balance is accounted for, the other agencies have been told there's $8.4 billion left to divvy up. The problem is that the co-chairmen based their budget on Kitzhaber's revenue numbers and cost-savings assumptions. Those assumptions are a vital part of his plan. In fact, without them state agencies will completely blow their budgets apart.

What are the governor's cost assumptions? They include nearly $360 million in public employee concessions, nearly $240 million for a complete overhaul of the health care system and approximately $300 million in health care provider cuts, just to name a few.

These assumptions are unrealistic, unlikely to materialize and will leave a gaping billion-dollar hole in the budget. That's right -- a nearly $1 billion crater that turns this "balanced" budget on its head.

Why? Because the enormous cuts to health care won't fly, negotiations with public employee unions are unlikely to yield significant cost savings, our revenue numbers don't look promising and on and on.

The assumptions are illusions. Worse, our political leaders know it. But they're gambling Oregon's economic stability on their hopes of better times in 2012. If their dreams come true, the economic and revenue tides will save them from difficult spending cuts, and they can refloat the old boat of excessive, unsustainable government spending.

But it's not going to happen. And when the cost-saving measures that appear in the governor's budget don't materialize, departments will face steep, unplanned cuts beyond those already in place. And no doubt politicians will be back at the capitol, hat in hand, demanding tax increases to plug the holes.

After the personal sacrifices they've made in their homes and businesses, Oregonians deserve better. They deserve a solid plan for their tax dollars. But we won't get that if legislators insist on passing a budget with inadequate cost assumptions and if they're more concerned about finding the side door out of Salem.

When the cost-savings assumptions don't materialize, Democrats and Republicans need to have a prioritized list of other potential reforms and cuts that can take their place immediately.

The private sector is struggling to do its part, to create jobs and opportunity for Oregonians. It's time for legislators and our governor to match those efforts with a realistic budget that promotes growth and economic stability.

Andrew Miller is president and CEO of Portland-based Stimson Lumber Company.

Oregon Department of Forestry's management plan didn't use best science

Published: Friday, April 29, 2011, 3:57 PM     Updated: Friday, April
29, 2011, 4:45 PM
By Eric Mortenson, The Oregonian

An independent review of the Oregon Department of Forestry's
management plans for the Tillamook and Clatsop state forests said the
department consistently failed to use the best available science,
reached unjustified conclusions and measured nearly everything by how
much timber was produced.

Conservation groups called the report by Oregon State University's
Institute for Natural Resources a "scathing" indictment of the
department's plans to increase logging in the state forests. Industry
supporters were critical as well, saying the Board of Forestry
undermined its staff by asking for the review.

"I think your bell has been rung," Tillamook County Commissioner Tim
Josi said during a forestry board meeting Friday in Salem. "This is
going to be used against you like a club."

Some board members also took issue with the report. Jennifer
Phillippi, business manager for a Cave Junction lumber company, said
the institute's work was "misleading and insensitive" to rural
communities hard-hit by reductions in logging and by mill closures.

"I can't line up my experience with what you're saying," she said. "We
might not be timber-dependent anymore, I think we're welfare-
dependent. The communities are literally falling apart."

The institute was asked to review the science the department
considered as it evaluated forest management plans and a strategy for
helping "Species of Concern" such as northern spotted owls, voles,
amphibians, steelhead and salmon.

Mike Cafferata, deputy chief of the department's state forests
division, said his staff analyzed, compared and made fish and wildlife
projections based on management plans that would result in forests
that were 50 percent or 30 percent "complex" -- with older trees,
multi-layered canopies and other characteristics.

"They're saying the best available science is better than the trends
you analyzed," Cafferata said of the institute's report. "I think we
learned a lot."

The department will prepare a response by June, State Forester Doug
Decker said.

Brenda McComb, an OSU forestry professor who led the review, said the
group did not intend to dismiss the work done by the department.

"There are things they could have done better, in our opinion," she
said. "The staff did a good job with the resources and time available.
I hope it's taken in that way."

Board Chairman John Blackwell urged environmentalists and industry
groups to avoid "polemics" in discussing the report.

Blackwell said his intent in asking for the scientific review was to
obtain "social license for the middle ground" in the contentious
forest management debate. The board will filter its future decisions
through the information gained in the report, he said.