46 



Under APHIS'S proposed regulation, it is not a question of 

 whether we will introduce new and harmful plant pests and 

 diseases — it is a question of how soon the introduction takes 

 place and how damaging the introduced pests and diseases prove to 

 be. 



The mitigation regime for New Zealand and Chilean logs 

 depends first of all on self-certification by the exporting firm. 

 The mitigation measures themselves won't kill many of the most 

 harmful pests and pathogens likely to infect the logs and APHIS 

 knows it. To make up for the sham mitigation regime it is 

 proposing, APHIS promises that visual inspections of a portion of 

 a shipload of logs combined with careful handling once the logs 

 are on shore will provide the margin of safety that methyl 

 bromide fumigation does not. 



Mr. Chairman — I have the greatest sympathy for mills in my 

 State. The timber supply shortage is real and it is immediate. 

 But the solution does not lie in risky imports of foreign timber. 

 Not at a time when the Pacific Northwest EXPORTS 20 to 25 percent 

 of all the timber harvested in the region. 



That's right. One in every four logs cut in Oregon and 

 Washington is exported. Most of that timber goes to the 

 protected Japanese milling industry — 16,000 gyppo mills in 

 Japan cutting high quality Douglas Fir and Hemlock from the 

 Northwest, while our mills are reduced to buying much lower 

 quality radiata pine from Chile and New Zealand — at great risk 

 to the health of the Northwest's incomparable forests. 



The potential for a forest health catastrophe caused by 

 imported logs cannot be overstated. I am confident that by the 

 time this hearing is finished you will share my concern, Mr. 

 Chairman, and agree with me that the Department of Agriculture's 

 Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is failing in its 

 responsibility to protect forest health. 



