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naturally volatile timber/building business cycle? To what 

 degree are local, small companies being hurt by lack of capital, 

 employee benefit requirements, increased mechanization costs. 

 Forest Service timber sale or bidding practices, poor management, 

 increased competition or the local timber biding wars? Are 

 they just plain out of their league when up against large 

 multi-nationals such as Pope and Talbot? 



Can changing Forest policy, regarding how sales are let out 

 to timber contractors, help small timber operators? What is 

 the effect of a federal debt that pulls capital out of the 

 private sector and into the governments pockets? Blaming 

 environmentalists is very convenient. 



Cost of Timber 



Have appeals really driven up cost of timber? What do the Forest 

 Service's minimum bid requirement formulas have to do with the 

 price of timber? How are minimum bid requirements determined? 

 To what degree are the national high timber costs this year 

 a result of high national demand for lumber? Are not the inroads 

 by environmentalists only a minor factor in timber prices? 

 I am enclosing an article on this from U.S. A today. Why use 

 environmentalists as scapegoats? 



"Frivolous" Appeals 



Before bemoaning the many "frivolous appeals". Sen. Pressler 

 should ask for a detailed, thorough accounting of the history 

 of Black Hills National Forest appeals. It is not in the Forest 

 Services best interest to publicize its failures. I checked 

 the record in March. As of last March, out of 15 known decisions 

 returned on Sierra Club appeals of Forest projects (of assorted 

 types of Forest implementation projects - not just timber 

 appeals), there were 2 remands, 3 withdrawals, 1 settlement, 

 and 2 corrected upholds. This is an 8/15 or a 53% record of 

 creating change. This is in a system were the defendant is 

 also the judge and jury. (The appropriate name for this judicial 

 system is a kangaroo court.) 



In 11/89 American Wildlands and the Sierra Club appealed and 

 subsequently won a remand of the Norbeck Decision. This decision 

 would have authorized massive timber sales - 1/5 of the Forest 

 timber output each year for a 5 year period. These sales are 

 yet to be brought on line, as the Forest Service has yet to 

 meet the conditions of the remand. Despite this hold up 

 of some specific huge timber sales, by environmentalist's 

 £]jccessful appeals, the Forest Service has always claimed it 

 meets its yearly timber quotas. 



Many of the environmentalist successes with timber appeals 

 occurred before 1992, so judicious editing of a statement about 

 appeals, can create a true but misleading statement. Although 

 I do not have the data, I believe if there was a slow down in 



