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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Sarah Kickler
EDITORIAL EDITOR
Mike Schmierbach
NIGHT EDITOR
Laura Cadiz
Price of logging is more than stumps
AN EMERALD EDITORIAL
The Forest Service’s admission
that it loses money is overdue
and underestimates the true
price of cutting trees
It’s December. Congress has gone home
for the year. Most of us are too busy
keeping warm and worrying about finals
to go hiking through the woods. Federal
timber policy has been set for the year, and
even timber companies have slowed “sal
vage” operations to wait for snow to melt in
the Cascades. In short, trees are one of the
last things on most people's minds.
Perhaps that is precisely what the U.S.
Forest Service was hoping for. The agency,
which operates under the Department of
Agriculture, just released preliminary in
formation indicating that it lost S14.7 mil
lion last fiscal year.
The story made the front page of the
Nov. 22 Register-Guard, but the implica
tions of it have been largely absent.
Worse, the national media haven’t
touched the issue; CNN’s web page con
tains no trace of the story despite searches
under a variety of key words.
In short, trees remain one of the last
things on people’s minds.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Ac
cording to the Associated Press story, en
vironmentalists believe the agency has
known for months that costs would ex
ceed revenues from timber sales. More
over, environmental groups have been ar
guing that the Forest Service was
operating in the red for much longer than
last year.
This information rarely received me
dia coverage, even though timber
issues have been making head
lines for years. The “con
flict” between spotted
owls and jobs, for ex
ample, has not
only received
extensive at
tention but
is largely a
creation of media focus.
Once again, people working
within the Forest Service dis
prove the fallacies the ser
vice has benefited
from. According
to a story by Paul
Roberts in the June
Harper’s, “The Forest Service’s own
economists would later determine that
job losses in the 1990s had more to do
with a recession and a sour market for
new homes than with owl litigation.”
While the media proved perfectly willing
to help industry scapegoat environmental
ists as being at the root of the economic cri
sis surrounding timber, the reality indicated
by the Forest Service’s new report is that it
was the timber-selling apparatus itself that
is to blame.
Even when papers like the Guard do re
port the long-known fact that timber sales
lose money for the federal government,
however, they continue to blame those costs
on environmental groups. The Associate
Press story quotes a Forest Ser
vice spokesman as say
ing the increased costs resulted from envi
ronmentally sensitive practices, saying, “It
costs more money to selectively harvest
trees than it does to clear-cut them.”
This blatantly ignores the fact that many
of the salvage logging programs currently
being practiced by the Forest Service are re
ally nothing more than clear-cutting forests
that contain a couple dead trees. In addition,
it suggests that if the service were able to sell
more trees, it would actually raise money.
Numerous other investigations of the For
est Service’s budget suggest that it is actual
ly the act of cutting trees that leads to lost
revenue for
the agency. According to Roberts, the Na
tional Resources Defense Council, hardly a
radical environmental group, has claimed
since the 1970s that the service loses money
on timber sales.
The reasons sales cost money are numer
ous. The fundamental problem, of course, is
that it costs more to prepare land for sales
than it does to sell the timber. Obviously,
the details are more complex.
One big cost is that of building roads, an
ongoing drain on the federal budget that
Congress recently voted to continue. Road
costs and other expenses are hidden by
what Roberts labels “questionable account
ing methods."
Another problem, pointed out in the Asso
ciated Press story, is that the agency doesn't
count timber revenues paid to the counties
in which forests are located as costs, despite
the fact that the revenue never makes its way
back to the service or the U.S. Treasury De
partment. If these payments are subtracted
from the Forest Services income, it actually
lost almost $290 million in fiscal 1996.
While the Associated tress reports this
number, along with one of $790 million pro
vided by the Sierra Club and accounting for
the environmental costs of logging, it never
questions the basic claim of the service that
simply increasing timber sales will allow the
agency to find its way back into the black.
It's wonderful that information about the
actual cost of logging practices is finding its
way into public view. It is telling, perhaps,
that a bill to end logging on federal forests
was introduced in Congress this year; we
think this is a sign views on timber issues
are finally changing.
Nevertheless, most legislators and the me
dia continue to believe that selling trees
makes money, and therefore that environ
mental rules stopping the sale of trees costs
money. Despite its claims about the cost of
environmentalism, the Forest Service has
done little to protect forest ecosystems and
the continued monetary drain on its budget
only proves this.
When the headline "Cutting trees costs
money” appears on top of the Register
Guard, USA Today and the New York
Times, then this country will finally be
gin to understand the ramifications
of its destructive and long-stand
ing practice of treating the for
est like a giant tree farm.
This editorial repre
sents the opinion of
the Emerald editorial
board. Responses
may be sent to
ode@oregon. uore
gon.edu.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Donation protest
Regarding the Emerald article,
“Student group protests Phil
Knight’s $25 million contribu
tion,” (ODE, Nov. 7) I believe
some points need to be ad
dressed.
Jon Jaqua, executive director of
the UO Foundation, stated that
Knight and “other trustees are not
trying to influence the University
with their gifts to the campaign."
Further in the article, fellow
foundation officer Dave Pertone
said the bulk of donations come
from alumni, “individuals, fami
lies and married couples.”
• Phil Knight's contribution in
cludes $15 million for endowed
chairs and professorships — as
well as a yearly raise for Univer
sity President Dave Frohnmayer.
• Phil Knight's “gift” to the
University includes the stipula
tion that the endowments be dis
tributed at the discretion of
Frohnmayer, thus “it is the presi
dent who will ultimately decide
on the final form of the policy on
the Knight Chairs and Professor
ships” (Nov. 13, 1996, Faculty
Senate Minutes).
• Charles H. Lundquist’s gift
has proven his influence on the
University very clearly, with the
ubiquitous Charles H. Lundquist
College of Business (the school
was known up until 1994 as the
College of Business Administra
tion) and the Charles H.
Lundquist Center for Entrepre
neurship.
• Somehow both Knight and
Lundquist’s donations are con
sidered “individual” donations
— even though the corporate
University connections seem
very clear. In the end, this con
nection is merely a wonderful
public relations service from
money made on the backs of the
exploited.
I also found Jaqua’s comment,
“The campaign was created in
1994 to combat the decreasing
state support for higher education
caused by Measure 5,” to be quite
interesting, since he was the au
thor and aggressive promoter of
the 1994 House Bill 3686.
• In 1994 Jaqua lobbied for and
promoted HB 3686. This bill al
lowed counties to offer tax breaks
to corporations who planned to
move their operations to Oregon
(Register-Guard, April 2, 1996).
Those tax breaks also include
abatement taxes — such as road
construction, sewer and electric
lines, etc. — that primarily serve
business interests.
• The bill also allows counties
to cap the assessed value of a
company’s land and equipment
at $100 million — forgiving the
taxes on any additional value for
15 years (Register-Guard, April 2,
1996).
• The bill caused taxes collect
ed for such things as higher edu
cation to drop precipitously, thus
pushing the burden to maintain
services onto small businesses
and homeowners. Naturally, and
understandably, thoy revolted
through Measures 5 and 47.
• Jaqua left his post as deputy
director and chief operating offi
cer of the Oregon Economic De
velopment Department to be
come the Executive Director of
the University Foundation.
Now, as executive director of
the foundation, Jaqua says, “The
lack of public support initiated
work to replace and enhance
funding through other sources...
The campaign is critical for the
University.” Perhaps the Oregon
State System of Higher Education
and the University in particular
wouldn't be in the crisis situation
it is in if it were not for the doings
of Jaqua himself.
One final important note:
• Jaqua’s father has been a
member of the Nike board of di
rectors since 1966 (Dunn and
Bradstreet Reference Book of Cor
porate Managers, 1997).
Does anyone else see the con
nections?
Ann Strahm
Student Action for Labor and Equality
and two co-signers