The results are dire and unacceptable
When I was growing up in Montana, we had a vibrant logging industry with 30 active sawmills. A career in forestry was a promising one.
It’s a different picture today.
Timber harvests in Montana’s national forests are down 80 percent over the last three decades, largely due to excessive federal regulations and endless obstructionist tactics from fringe groups. Nineteen of our 30 sawmills have closed. Just this month, two of those remaining mills announced layoffs or cutbacks.
Demand for timber isn’t the problem today — it continues to grow as the housing market recovers. Our mills are operating at two-thirds capacity. At a recent forest products roundtable in Missoula, I asked, “Why?” They told me it’s not complicated: they can’t get enough logs from our national forests.
The results are dire and unacceptable. Gone are many good-paying jobs that once kept food on the table for thousands of Montana families. Many forest counties face double-digit unemployment rates and high poverty rates.