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Corporation mill over in Camus, Washington, who supply us with 

 paper, have been hearing rumors that their operation will soon 

 shut down. As paper mills close up and down the coast, we will 

 have to purchase our paper supply from further and further away. 

 At some point, it will not be cost effective and our management will 

 have to make some tough decisions. 



Already, our plant is going through a serious downsizing in 

 which we will reduce our workforce by about 40 percent. Some may 

 say it is just part of the corporate trend, but most of us know that 

 the workforce reduction is due in no small part to a tight timber 

 supply and a fear of the future. 



I do not know if people back here understand what it means 

 when a mill shuts down. In Washington, D.C., you may not notice 

 it if a few hundred people lose their jobs. It may not have much 

 of an impact on the economy. But in many of the small towns 

 where timber workers live and try to earn a living, a loss of even 

 100 jobs can be devastating. In most cases, the entire economic and 

 social fabric of the community revolves around the mill, and when 

 it dies, there are few employment opportunities left. At least, there 

 are not many that come at a decent wage. I have seen the ghost 

 towns that are created when the mill goes down. I have seen fami- 

 lies torn apart. I have seen good men and women turn to alcohol 

 abuse. I have seen them reach the depths of depression. 



I ask the men and women here today to think about that when 

 they tell you that the administration has done a great job in pre- 

 paring timber sales and moving some volume through Option 9. 

 And I ask the men and women here today representing the envi- 

 ronmental lobby what they would say to a young girl who is watch- 

 ing her family struggle to put food on the table because daddy has 

 lost his job and cannot find a decent job. It is a true shame. 



We have heard the administration praise their worker retraining 

 and economic support program, but the truth is, the package falls 

 well short of what is actually needed. First, most of the jobs pro- 

 vided under the package fall under the category of ecological in- 

 vestment. While these jobs are important — they include forest and 

 watershed restoration — most of them are seasonal and do not pay 

 sufficient wages to take care of a family. 



Second, when millions of dollars have been spent to help timber 

 workers move into other jobs and trades, reports, like a story that 

 appeared a couple of years ago in the Bellingham, Washington, 

 Herald indicate that Federal, State, and local agencies do not know 

 just how much money actually makes it into the hands of those 

 workers seeking assistance. WHiat is certain is that the total sum 

 of money allocated for these programs does not reach the men and 

 women who have lost their jobs to the timber supply crisis. Instead, 

 the funding gets lost in a bureaucracy of more than 160 agencies 

 and organizations overseeing the implementation and funding of 

 the programs. 



The other problem is that most of the retraining and economic 

 adjustment programs do not work. Tens of thousands of dollars are 

 spent on programs, such as self-confidence seminars and economic 

 impact studies, that do not produce a job once completed. There are 

 a lot of people who entered the retraining program only to find 

 they could not find a job when they completed the training, and I 



