There is plenty of blame to go around for loss of logging jobs

Letter to the Editor,

I was musing the action by our government during the past 30 years that has resulted in the closing of some 200 lumber mills in the Northwest and the loss of 40,000 good paying jobs.

This action was presented as necessary to protect endangered species from harm posed by logging. Although this harm has never been substantiated, the environmentalist program was rolled out with great enthusiasm by our government and loudly endorsed by all so-called environmentalists.

Did the politicians who designed and passed the Endangered Species Act care a whit for the people who lost their means of livelihood because of this bill, the ruined dreams and truncated careers of thousands of loggers, mill workers and small businesses dependent on the lumber industry? Some of these put out of business had been in the lumber industry for five generations.

Endangerment to the spotted owl was given as justification for decimating the lumber industry in the Northwest, but now it is discovered that the risk to this bird was not logging activity after all. The risk is now believed to be competition by the barred owl (a cousin of the spotted owl).

Despite the rhetoric from both Democrats and Republicans about job creation, the laws they pass usually wind up destroying jobs.

The rules and regulations pushed by the Obama administration have an even worse impact than Congress with the result of more people out of work and more on food stamps. It seems to me Congress, the president and the Supreme Court are all trying their best to destroy our country as fast as possible. I can’t imagine what their agenda may be, but the combined results of their actions over the past three decades have nearly brought the greatest nation in history to her knees.

— Bill Payne

Libby