Alaska Travesty

During the past decade, the U.S. Forest Service has lost more than $260 million in subsidizing two monopoly timber companies in a vain attempt to prop up the lumber industry in southeastern Alaska. The bulk of this timber is not used to make boards to build houses, but to be ground into pulp, mostly for export to Japan to make synthetic fiber. In the process, the federal government participates in the destruction of one the nation’s rare rain forests and outstanding wildlife habitats in the Tongass National Forest.

Back in the 1950s, the Forest Service guaranteed the two firms a long-term supply of timber if they would build pulp mills in the region south of Juneau. The idea was to help settle the region and provide a solid lumbering economy. It may have made some sense then, but not now. The market for the timber has plunged by nearly 50% since 1980 and jobs have declined from 3,000 to 1,800. Alice Rivlin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and a member of the Wilderness Society’s governing council, said, “I found it an absolutely fascinating example of public policy gone astray.”

The Tongass giveaway was locked into the Alaska lands act of 1980, requiring the Forest Service to spend up to $40 million a year to maintain the timber supply to the firms, although much of the timber has gone unsold. Even the Forest Service sees no resurgence in the market, but believes it has a mandate to build roads and hold sales anyway.

Fortunately, Congress directed in 1980 that this provision of the Alaska bill be reviewed this year. Hearings begin in the U.S. House on Thursday. Congress and the Administration should move quickly to protect the best old-growth stands of timber and wildlife habitat and put timber sales on a competitive, short-term basis that at least will end the giveaway of taxpayer money.