Ron Wyden faces great opportunity or peril In navigating federal forest policy

Will Oregon’s Senior Senator Grab the gold ring?

As Chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Sen. Ron Wyden is perfectly positioned to resolve the federal forest health/timber supply/county payments conundrum and claim a grand prize.

By rescuing the nearly insolvent O & C counties, restoring forest health in Eastern Oregon while providing much needed timber supply to create family-wage jobs in rural Oregon and also increase business for banks, technology developers, and lots of other suppliers in Metropolitan Portland.

Such achievements will cement Sen. Wyden’s legacy alongside other Oregon political greats such as Mark O. Hatfield and Tom McCall. Reps. Greg Walden, Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader, along with Governor John Kitzhaber’s O & C task force spent months developing a compromise plan for the 2.3 million acres of forestland in 18 Western Oregon Counties.

Sen. Wyden has labored for three years crafting a collaborative plan for improving forest health on the National Forests of Eastern Oregon while reinvigorating the timber dependent communities a long way from the I-5 corridor. His new leadership position in the Senate provides the platform to craft and pass generational federal forest legislation.

Ron Wyden once again faces perils of trying to navigate federal forest policy

Oregon O&C forest proposal receives House hearing and a promise: negotiations will continue

Wyden proposes giving some O&C timberlands to tribes

House Takes Up Proposals to Raise Revenue Through Logging

Timber split

The great divide

Revitalize the Forest Cluster?

What is the “Forest Cluster” and what will it take to revitalize it?  The forest cluster is private firms and public organizations that “support production of and benefits from primary and secondary wood products.”  In other words, an Economic Development Strategy for the forest/timber community.

The notion of clusters was introduced at the Oregon Business Plan Summit in 2006.  The Forest Cluster Work Group has been meeting since 2007. Here is a memo on the status of the Forest Cluster as of 12-1-2010  Recently, the Forest Cluster group has expanded to include private forestry and timber representatives in an effort to develop action items for the Board of Forestry and the Oregon legislature. 

As a critical response to the economic and employment problems Oregon faces, the BOF and the Oregon Business Plan are using the “cluster” concept “to make things happen.”  Stay tuned.