Region
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
A9
Chinese logging ban to boost demand for foreign timber
Competition for
logs is strong
with domestic
sawmills
By Mateusz Perkowski
EO Media Group
A logging ban in China’s
natural forests will likely in-
crease its demand for foreign
logs, but the impact on the
Northwest’s timber market is
uncertain.
Though the country will
need to import more logs, it’s
unclear how motivated Chi-
nese buyers will be to com-
pete with domestic sawmills,
which are currently offering
high prices, experts say.
“To expand the market,
they’re going to have to go
head-to-head with the mills,”
said Gordon Culbertson, in-
ternational business director
at the Forest2Market consult-
ing firm.
According to USDA, a
prohibition against commer-
cial timber harvests in natu-
ral forests — as opposed to
plantations — was enacted by
China’s government to count-
er decades of over-cutting,
contributing to a 5 percent
drop in its log production in
2017.
Since 2013, China’s log
production has fallen from
more than 80 million cubic
meters to less than 60 million
cubic meters, and the logging
ban in natural forests is ex-
pected to cause shortages for
another three to five years, ac-
cording to the agency’s For-
eign Agricultural Service.
“There’s definitely in-
creased demand from China.
Whether U.S. suppliers want
to fill that demand depends on
their alternatives,” said Kent
EO Media Group file photo
A front-end loader hauls logs to the edge of the Port
of Astoria’s Pier 1 Nov. 2, 2010, in this file photo. A ban
on commercial logging of natural forests in China is
expected to increase its demand for foreign logs.
Wheiler, director of the Cen-
ter for International Trade in
Forest Products at the Univer-
sity of Washington.
Ever since excessive log-
ging in the headwaters of the
Yellow and Yangtze rivers
was blamed for massive flood-
ing during the 1990s, China’s
government has moderated its
harvest levels, Wheiler said.
The natural forest logging
ban is the latest example of
China’s growing concern
about the environment, which
the government has been
working to improve to avoid
upsetting the country’s popu-
Second senator formally complains against Kruse
By Paris Achen
Capital Bureau
A second senator has filed
a public complaint against
Sen. Jeff Kruse detailing ac-
cusations of unwanted touch-
ing over a period of years.
Sen. Elizabeth Steiner
Hayward, D-Beaverton, filed
the formal complaint against
the Roseburg Republican
Nov. 14, according to the
document released by Oregon
Legislative Counsel Tuesday
“My goal is simply to get
him to stop touching me inap-
propriately, which he has per-
sisted in doing despite my on-
going statements to him that I
do not want him to touch me
in any way other than a pro-
fessional handshake,” Steiner
Hayward wrote.
The Beaverton senator said
Kruse’s inappropriate behav-
ior escalated in 2015. Kruse
began giving Steiner Hayward
close hugs, touching her thigh
and sitting so close to her that
their legs made contact.
“I told him on several oc-
casions that I was uncom-
fortable with this level of
physical contact, that it was
unprofessional, and that as a
survivor of domestic violence
those behaviors were particu-
larly problematic for me,” she
wrote. “Additionally, I told
him that I have asthma, and
that the significant residual
tobacco smoke on his clothing
irritated my breathing when
he sat too close to me.”
Details from Steiner Hay-
ward, first reported earlier
Nov. 21 by OPB, follow news
earlier this month of a public
complaint filed by Sen. Sara
Gelser, D-Corvallis.
Steiner Hayward, through
her chief of staff, referred
all questions to Legislative
Portland Tribune/Jaime Valdez
Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton, walks with other senators into the
inauguration ceremony of Gov. Kate Brown in the House of Representatives at the
Oregon Capitol in Salem Jan. 9, 2017. On Nov. 14 she filed a formal complaint Tuesday
against Sen. Jeff Kruse for unwanted touching.
Counsel.
In her grievance, Gelser
accused Kruse of touching
her breasts and thigh, giving
her full body hugs, wrapping
his arms around her tightly,
kissing her cheek and whis-
pering in her ear. She called
for Kruse to be expelled from
the Senate.
Previous informal com-
plaints by the two female
senators prompted a legis-
lative lawyer and human re-
source administrator to warn
Kruse to stop the unwanted
touching. Requests to stop
the behavior went unheeded,
according to the formal com-
plaints by Gelser and Steiner
Hayward.
By early 2016, several
women at the Capitol had
complained about Kruse’s
unwanted touches and lodged
informal complaints (which
are not public) to Senate Pres-
ident Peter Courtney, D-Sa-
lem.
Kruse behaved in a more
“circumspect” manner for
nearly a year, Steiner Hay-
ward wrote.
In March, the unwanted
touching resumed, she report-
ed.
“I would remind him that I
did not want him to touch me
in those ways, and he would
back off for a week or two,
and then the cycle would be-
gin again,” she stated.
She and her chief of staff,
Lizzy Atwood Wills, devised
a plan to prevent the unwant-
ed behavior by making sure
a staff member accompanied
the senator during any meet-
ings with Kruse and always
left the door to the room ajar.
“I have never felt the need
to take such precautions with
any other man, either in my
medical career or in the Leg-
islature,” Steiner Hayward
wrote.
Kruse did not respond to a
request for comment Tuesday
afternoon. Despite mounting
calls for him to resign, Kruse
told the Pamplin/EO Capital
Bureau Nov. 17 that he had no
plans to leave his seat in the
Senate.
A formal investigation into
the allegations is underway.
Senate President Peter Court-
ney has stripped Kruse of his
legislative committee assign-
ments and ordered that his
senate office door be removed
as discipline for smoking in
the Capitol and the repeat-
ed allegations of unwanted
touching.
On Nov. 20, Kruse was
looking ahead to the next
legislative session in early
2018 during a presentation for
the Roseburg Area Chamber
of Commerce, according to
KQEN News Radio 1240.
The senator acknowledged
the accusations against him
and referenced an Andy War-
hol quote about everyone hav-
ing 15 minutes of fame, the
radio station reported.
“I have exceeded mine,”
Kruse was quoted as saying.
kill the state’s wolves.
However, the investigation
into the most recent killing, a
collared wolf designated OR-
23, is still active, OSP spokes-
man Sgt. Kaipo Raiser said.
Steve Pedery, conservation
director for the Portland-based
group Oregon Wild, warned
that a “shoot, shovel and shut
up” attitude toward wolves has
taken hold in rural Oregon and
become part of the political
fault line separating factions of
Americans.
In Wallowa County, he said,
it’s not unusual to see “Smoke
a pack a day” bumper stickers.
Doug Cottam, ODFW’s
Wildlife Division adminis-
trator, said the department is
“upset and frustrated by the
unlawful wolf killings in Ore-
gon.” Rewards are offered for
information leading to arrests.
“Poaching of any wildlife
is wrong and harmful to their
conservation,” he said in a pre-
pared statement.
Police and ODFW believe
the latest wolf was shot Nov.
12 or 13. It was found Nov.
14 in the Chesnimnus hunting
area known as Cold Springs, in
Northeast Oregon’s Wallowa
County. Tracking collars on
wolves are designed to emit a
mortality signal if the animal
does not move for a certain
period of time, ODFW spokes-
woman Michelle Dennehey
said. She assumed that’s what
led to finding the wolf’s carcass
in this case.
State police found evidence
OR-23 was killed by a gunshot,
but released no other informa-
tion.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
on Monday directed the
state’s health agency to guar-
antee coverage for children
and pregnant women covered
by a federal program that’s in
limbo.
Oregon is one of three
states that will run out of fed-
eral funding for the Children’s
Health Insurance Program, or
CHIP, in December, accord-
ing to OHA. Up to half of the
states will be out of federal
money by February.
Brown directed OHA to
maintain coverage of groups
covered by CHIP for the first
four months of 2018. That
would cost the state about $35
million. About 121,000 kids
and 1,700 pregnant women
are covered by the program in
Oregon.
CHIP generally enjoys
broad political support, but
Congress is now well past its
Sept. 30 deadline to reautho-
rize funding for the program.
But Oregon officials ex-
pect Congress to reauthorize
the funding and to pay the
state back.
“While this additional cost
was not in the Oregon Health
Authority’s legislatively ap-
proved budget, we can man-
age this on a short-term basis
because it is early in the bi-
ennium,” OHA Director Pat
Allen wrote in a Nov. 17 let-
ter to Brown. “We will spend
more of our appropriated state
funds earlier to make up for
lost federal funds.”
Allen added that if Con-
gress does not reauthorize
CHIP funding or doesn’t fund
it retroactively, the lost fund-
ing would “cause a hole in
the OHA budget” that would
have to be reconciled in 2018.
The CHIP program pays
97 percent of the total costs
of health care for the 121,000
Oregon kids covered under
the program. Those children
can be covered by Medicaid,
but will be covered at a re-
JOHN DAY ELKS CLUB
2017 Carrie
Young Memorial
Gov. Kate Brown
duced match rate of 64 per-
cent, which would cost the
state more money, according
to Allen’s memo.
If CHIP expires, federal
funds can still pay for emer-
gency services for pregnant
women, such as labor and de-
livery, according to Oregon’s
interim Medicaid director,
David Simnitt. But the state
would have to pay for other
services for pregnant women
covered by the program, such
as prenatal check-ups.
The 121,000 kids covered
by CHIP in Oregon live in
homes where incomes are be-
tween 100 and 300 percent of
the federal poverty level. Ore-
gon must cover about a third of
those kids — those earning be-
tween 100 and 138 percent of
the poverty level — under the
Affordable Care Act, accord-
ing to OHA. CHIP covers chil-
dren whose parents make too
much to qualify for Medicaid
but still may struggle to afford
coverage. Kids in households
making less than 100 percent
of the federal poverty level are
eligible for Medicaid.
Brown’s directive comes
as OHA struggles to get its
books in order, shore up its el-
igibility and payment systems
and bounce back from a pum-
meling of negative publicity.
The state overpaid Medic-
aid providers by up to $74 mil-
lion between 2014 and 2016,
about $10 million of which it
has already recouped. Allen,
who took the reins Sept. 1 in
the wake of a publicity scan-
dal, identified a host of other
issues with payment and allo-
cation of funds — to the tune
of about $112.4 million.
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It’s been a bloody year for
Oregon wolves, with at least
10 killed under circumstances
ranging from authorized “le-
thal control” due to livestock
attacks and a shooting ruled
self-defense, to an unintended
poisoning and unsolved poach-
ings.
At this point, Oregon State
Police have no reason to think
there is a concerted action by an
individual or group to illegally
Gov. Brown directs
OHA to preserve kids’
insurance program
Capital Bureau
Retirement Party
Honoring
LanNi
Strong
FRIDAY, DEC. 1ST, 5:00PM
D inner
A
uction
&
Celebrating 31 years at
Old West Federal Credit Union
Please bring a Memory to share
Saturday, December 2, 2017
1:00 - 4:00 pm
John Day Senior Center
142 NE Dayton, John Day, OR
Spaghetti Dinner by Donation
Proceeds to Grant County Senior Citizens
27067
EO Media Group
information service.
“There’s a lot of domestic
competition for logs,” Culb-
ertson said.
Even so, China’s demand
for logs helps establish a price
floor for U.S. timber produc-
ers, since the country pro-
vides an export outlet even if
the domestic market softens,
said Paul Owen, president of
Vanport International, which
specializes in log exports.
“It will keep prices, par-
ticularly in the Pacific North-
west, strong,” he said.
The Northwest has an ad-
vantage in the species it pro-
vides to China: Hemlock and
Douglas fir that are often used
for concrete formwork in the
construction trade, Owen
said.
New Zealand, by contrast,
ships radiata pine and New
Zealand pine, which are often
milled for furniture, he said.
“It’s a different market.”
By Claire Withycombe
OSP: Surge of wolf killings isn’t organized effort
By Eric Mortenson
lace, he said.
“They need to do what
they’re doing,” Wheiler said.
“They had significantly over-
harvested.”
New Zealand controls the
largest share of China’s mar-
ket for imported logs at 36
percent, followed by Russia
with 24 percent and the U.S.
with 13 percent, he said.
Culbertson of Forest2Mar-
ket said the strong U.S. dollar
and healthy domestic timber
market may prompt Chinese
buyers to seek logs from Aus-
tralia and New Zealand.
In the U.S., the log market
has greatly improved as de-
mand for lumber has strength-
ened.
The price per thousand
board feet of framing lumber
now averages about $440, up
from less than $200 during the
depths of the financial crisis in
2009, according to the Ran-
dom Lengths timber industry
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