No, absolutely not. Thanks for posting on this topic, Jeff. I feel like this issue highlights the way well-meaning citizens can be misled by ideas that come off as "common sense" when in fact they cause a lot of destruction. Seems rather than making it an issue of jobs vs. trees we should reframe it around good science/methodology in sustainability vs. short-sighted profit-driven projects.

I find it interesting that those that are opposed to salvage logging all of sudden embrace the notion that government activity should result in profit for the government, or at least cover its costs. I didnt realize we had such strong free-market advocates on this website. Following this logic, one would have to require that all recreationists on federal land pay the true cost of government provided recreation opportunities, that all freeways should become toll roads, that airline passengers pay the real cost of government subsidized airports and air traffic controllers, etc, etc, etc.

You say "Finally, removing the last arrow from the salvage-defenders' quiver, the GAO report also discounts the effect of environmental lawsuits in slowing down the recovery."

I don't really see your point here.

Would you feel better if we said that the effect of complex of environmental laws, government red tape, and inability to get timely assistance from the feds has made salvage logging unprofitable?

It seems that you have replaced on arrow with three. And the one that you replaced is still there. The reality is, the threat of litigation is just as effective as actual litigation.

I also not the leftist disgust for common sense. IMHO, the lefty will listen and follow insane dribble coming from a self-proclaimed expert, but will disregard something reasonable said by another with the wrong degrees.

Government red tape? You mean the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Environmental Policy Act? Yeah, do away with those and things sure would be a lot simpler.

Since when is the Government Accountability Office the source of "dribble coming from a self-proclaimed expert"? Or is that what we call it when independent economists with the GAO say logging interests are making their money from these sales by farming United States taxpayers?

No matter what ppl think, the govt will allow salvage logging to go on anywhere they want, its always been that way.

Would everyone feel better if the GAO issued a report saying that salvage logging the Biscuit made the government money? I sincerely doubt it. I suspect the spin if that were to occur would be that the govt is making money at the expense of the environment. It's a damned if you do, damned if you dont situation for the USFS. The ugly reality is that as long as a tree is cut on federal land a vocal minority of people will have a knee-jerk reaction against it.

I dunno about the profit motive and all that other stuff, as I can see both sides of that one...ie you want it to be profitable, and then again you don't want it to be profitable.

I went up to Mt St Helens last year, first since the blast. One can clearly see the benefits of going into an area after a natural disaster. When the volcano blew, tens of thousands of acres of trees were blown down, both on private (Weyerhauser) and public lands. 26 years later, it is very interesting to see the results of man's (ok..and women's) intervention vs leaving it to only Mother (Father?) Nature to restore the forests. The replanted private forests looked much healthier, and had more robust wildlife than the desolute public lands that were left intact. But maybe the public lands will catch up in another 50-75 more years. It is an interesting experiment, since you can see, side by side, the results of either strategy.

Perhaps it would be more cost effective if the wood could be harvested quickly. You can look that up at duh.com. You should thank environmental lawyers and their enviro clients paying their fees who are responsible for stretching this out over a long period of time making it less cost effective to harvest what timber was left. That you're doing a victory lap over this is predictable. And pathetic. But the rest of us 'get' what happened here.

Reasons for salvage logging:

• Payoff campaign contributors.

• Build roads which reduce future protection against more logging.

• Turn that damn forest into a proper tree farm.

What about the economic value of all the wood harvested? Looking at exclusively at the "government's profit" ignores the other side of the ledger.

Lots of people are paid "family wages" to harvest the timber, transport it to the mills, cut it down to lumber, haul it to the lumber store, transport it to a job site, and build houses with it. Those are real Oregonians who had the benefit of income and the self-esteem that comes from working, rather than living on welfare. And don't forget the government had the pleasure of taxing all those wages, and the profit of the trucking companies, sawmills, lumber stores, and home builders. Not to mention all the new property taxes that those new homes will pay for the next 100 years (or longer).

Liberals still like to live in houses, right? The price of housing would double if you let the Sierra Club veto every timber sale.

Looking exclusively at the "government's profit" is like counting the fees the Patent Office takes in, without looking at the many layers of follow on wealth creation generated by the patented products.

The last I heard, ninety to ninety-five percent of our forests are tree farms, managed for short term(in the big view) economic gain. Don't you think it would be wise to leave the rest to be managed by God or evolution for the long term benefit of life?

Remember you're talking about a forest that was decimated by fire. If you left it to nature, it would take a hundred years to even begin looking like a forest again.

Seedlings planted my man should accelerate that process by decades. We're not taking God (or mother nature) out of the equation, we're just using the natural resource that they provided and helping them regenerate at the same time.

Also: I forgot to mention the thousands of billable hours that the attorneys were able to earn thanks to all the enviro-whackos.

Good expression of the misthinking around forest issues, Mister Tee!

• Yes, of course we need 2x4s. Some of that can come from publicly owned forests, when the logging meets the requirements of fulfilling the public need. It has been shown that logging a burn SLOWS forest recovery [google "oregon state" and donato]. It has been shown that the taxpayer is paying to support this logging, instead of benefitting from it. Our protected roadless areas are being eroded. Biscuit is NOT the place we should be generating jobs and 2x4s.

• The lumber industry and their academic toadies have tried to paint burned forests as wholly charred wastelands [read more of those google results]. Honest scientists have shown that this is far from reality. Much life remains. Trees sprout from seeds, stumps, and roots to rebuild a proper forest MORE quickly than human intervention can.

Remember you're talking about a forest that was decimated by fire. If you left it to nature, it would take a hundred years to even begin looking like a forest again.

You might want to visit Yellowstone National Park. After the fires, the logging industry (and many Republican politicians) were running around screaming "the park is RUINED!" Go there now and listen to the National Park Service biologists explain why the fire was the best thing to happen to the ecology of the region since humans began managing it.

Forests in the west evolved with fire. If they are given a chance, they will recover quite nicely on their own without the assistance of chainsaws, bulldozers, and log trucks.

<h2>What you or I or Greg Walden think a forest should look like is irrelevant. On federal land, where the overall health of the environment should be the #1 concern, what matters is how it looks to a salmon, an elk, or a wolverine. A tree plantation of nothing but douglas firs planted in neat rows may be aesthetically pleasing, but it is not biologically so.</h2>