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Senator Wirth. Thank you, very much, Mayor Neimeyer. 



Now I am struck by a number of the panelists — well, I have a 

 minute or two of questions. I was struck by a number of panelists 

 saying that if the Wirth bill passes the mills are going to close 

 down. Is there a position in the legislation that says that the mills 

 are going to be closed down. The answer to that is no. Right now 

 what the legislation does is remove the automatic four and a half 

 billion board feet that is in the current law over a ten-year period 

 of time. It says that the forest will be out based upon what the 

 Forest Service determines is going to be the need and also remove 

 the forty million dollar annual provision that automatically goes to 

 the Tongass. 



There is no other national forest in the country that has an auto- 

 matic requirement for how much to be cut and there is no other 

 forest in the country that receives an automatic entitlement. 



I just wanted to, for the record, point out that there is nothing in 

 the legislation that says that X, Y or Z Mill is going to be closed 

 down. 



I do think it is unfortunate and there is — one of our witnesses 

 this morning talked about over-reaction, I think that was Mr. 

 Taylor, about overreaction from one group of people. I think there 

 is also a tendency for there to be overreaction from others, just as 

 one would somewhat accuse environmentalists of fear tactics, the 

 world is going to be destroyed if timbering continues. I think also it 

 is unfortunate that some people in the timber industry said they 

 were going to have 30 percent unemployment or 40 or 50 percent 

 unemployment if this legislation passes. 



Neither position is true. I think most everybody knows that and 

 what we plan to do is to find a reasonable balance between the 

 two. 



I just wanted for the record to point that out so everybody under- 

 stands it, that there is no provision in the legislation that says that 

 mills are going to be closed down. They will compete like other 

 mills but there is nothing that says that they will be closed down. 



Senator Murkowski? 



Senator Murkowski. Senator, I would hope that some of our wit- 

 nesses can address the point that you brought up. I think it is fair 

 to point out that in both bills before us we would do away with the 

 proposed entitlement of $40 million. So that point really is not de- 

 batable. The question is what can you do with regard to the assur- 

 ance of the long-term safeguards for the industry unless you have a 

 continuing supply of timber. Our particular bill provides up to 4.5 

 billion protected based on a number of factors, including the mar- 

 keting. I would hope that other witnesses would have their tes- 

 timony directed to the question brought up by the Chairman. In 

 other words, the necessity of having 4.5 is an appropriate point and 

 one that should be made by the witnesses and certainly it is not 

 my intention to debate the matter here. 



Senator Wirth. Thank you all, we appreciate your coming. 

 Thank you ever so much and we also appreciate most of you stick- 

 ing to the time frame and that is going to be helpful to everybody. 



Now we might have the second panel, please come up and while 

 you are sitting there, we might ask the third panel to come up and 

 move into the circle here. Mr. Greg Steveler, Gustavus Community 



