35 



What do you think we can do to help you? What do you think 

 the administration needs to do to try to help the Mayr Brothers 

 and others that are in the same situation, when we made a com- 

 mitment? What do you feel that we could do to help you? 



Mr. Mayr. Attached to my testimony is a bill that would give the 

 administration the authority to do what they say they would like 

 to do and offset the mill loan balance against the Forest Service's 

 liability on our timber sales. 



One point that I skipped in my testimony is the fact that this 

 is not a plan that Mayr Brothers had when we built the mill, to 

 use the Section 318 sales. The Farmers Home Administration was 

 very interested in our current timber supply at that time. How 

 would we operate while we were building the mill? They asked for 

 copies — in fact, over here in the Department of Agriculture, well, 

 the Forest Service is over there, but in the FmHA is a copy of one 

 of our contracts. They asked for the status of all the sales, a report 

 of all the volume under contract. It is my conviction that that loan 

 was approved at the Washington, D.C., level due to the fact we had 

 that timber under contract. 



That is why I say, to help us, we could go back to work imme- 

 diately if the Forest Service would honor their commitments on 

 those sales by just taking care of the damages. 



Mr. COOLEY. I imagine your attorneys have pursued the legal 

 remedies, but is there no recourse by the private sector against the 

 government when they do not fulfill the contracts that they have 

 awarded? 



Mr. Mayr. Yes. There is a remedy and it is called the Court of 

 Contract Claims. That is a long process and our mill will be auc- 

 tioned off and our people will be permanently retrained for other 

 work by the time we ever get a contract settlement. My attorney's 

 optimistic guess is 18 months, minimum. 



Mr. CoOLEY. It is too bad we cannot expedite that process. 



Mr. Geisinger, we did not give you an opportunity to make any 

 kind of a statement. I kind of jumped over you, but you were not 

 on the panel. Do you have anything you would like to say at this 

 time, in my little bit of time that is left? 



STATEMENT OF JAMES C. GEISINGER, PRESIDENT, 

 NORTHWEST FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



Mr. Geisinger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am here for tech- 

 nical assistance for my colleagues that run mills for a business. I 

 have been at this work for 20 years and I have put myself through 

 this torture because of people like Gerry Bendix and Tom Mayr. 

 They represent the heart and soul of the forest products industry 

 in the Pacific Northwest. They represent the very kinds of compa- 

 nies this administration says it wants to save, but they are the 

 very companies that are getting the least benefit out of Option 9 

 or any of the other administration's forest policies. 



I would like to briefly review history to set the stage for some 

 discussion. On July 1, 1993, when the President announced Option 

 9, Secretary Bruce Babbitt stood in front of this country and said 

 that this plan would produce two billion board feet in its first year 

 and one billion feet thereafter. By my math, therefore, that says 

 four billion feet should have been sold as we speak. The fact is, less 



