191 



destinations might be lower than costs from Vancouver, thus recapturing initial shipping 

 cost difTerences. 



A similar situation would hold true for many other Southeast Alaskan products. 



A high value-added, secondary manuTacturing industry is market driven— based on quality 

 and marketiiie to a far greater extent than is a commodity, production based industry, like 

 pulp. Therefore, differences in shipping costs are far less significant. The quality of the 

 individual product and the needs of the customer are paramount. 



Southeast Alaska received SI 10 million from Congress last year to help with problems in 

 the timber industry'. Now is the time to use that funding to effect a transition in the timber 

 industry 



Your bill deprives us of one of our greatest strengths—the genius of the free-enterprise 

 system. By decreeing who will get timber, and mandating price controls that have nothing to do 

 with fair economic competition, your bill prevents free-market entrepreneurs in timber or other 

 industries from establishing the most valuable and efficient use of Tongass resources, and at the 

 same time cost .American taxpayers a massive subsidy This is a clear example of environment and 

 development being compatible until distorted by a misguided and heavy-handed government 

 subsidized program 



Conclusion. 



By placing the needs of KPC above those of all other forest users, your bill threatens all other 

 forest users, and the environment Although billed as a contract "extension," the new, 23-year, 

 taxpayer-subsidized contract L-P wants (and the bill provides) would be devastating for the 

 Tongass National Forest It would start right now and go at least until the year 2019 It would 

 place L-P's corporate needs ab' ve the needs of any other forest user; give L-P rights over the 

 Tongass it has never had before, threaten jobs in other Tongass-dependent industries, and make a 

 mockery of balanced multiple use 



Your bill would roll back vital balanced-management reforms of the 1990 Tongass Timber 

 Reform Act, undermine the National Forest Management Act as it applies to the Tongass, and 

 make conservation offish and wildlife habitat and protection of the world's largest remaining 

 temperate rainforest secondary to the commercial exploitation of that forest The bill rewards a 

 major corporate polluter for violating pollution laws . Because it officially establishes one 

 company as the major commercial user of the forest, and commits the government to keeping that 

 company profitable, the bill squelches free enterprise and will likely halt the development of a new 

 timber industry based on the free market awd secondary manufacturing of wood products within 



