Corporate Logging

Chad Hanson is right on (Commentary, July 15). For at least the last 60 years the U.S. Forest Service has been charged with administering a form of corporate welfare that has the unfortunate side effect of reducing the breadth, depth and diversity of our national forests. It sells logging rights at a loss; i.e., after the surveying, mapping and other overhead expenses, and especially after the construction of logging roads, we the taxpayers are losing money (more than $1 billion in 2000). Worse, we are losing our forests. With regard to fire-prevention logging, the plain truth is that small trees and brush burn best, and the logging companies want large trees. The unintended consequence is that logging operations increase the fuel supply. To deny these facts is to guarantee more of the same.

Robert Siebert

Orange