Timber company backs out of controversial road deal with Forest Service.
By on Jan 6th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Timber company backs out of controversial road deal with Forest Service.
Last week, ThinkProgress noted that Forest Service chief Mark E. Rey, who is a former lobbyist for the timber industry, was trying to “push through a change in U.S. Forest Service agreements that would make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.” The last-minute rule change would primarily have benefited Plum Creek Timber, the largest private landowner in the United States. But now the company has decided that it will no longer pursue the changes “given the lack of receptivity” to the idea. Rey claimed the company’s decision was “not good news for the federal government or the public at large.”
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Startled, Forest Service chief Mark E. Rey looked up from his current engagement fluffing which ever Corporate Baron who was in front of him, and stated “This is bad news for America!”.
Where upon he immediately resumed his fluffing.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:16 pmActually, Mr. Rey, you being the chief of the Forest Service is “not good news for the federal government or the public at large.” You clearly don’t know on whose behalf you are supposed to be working.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:17 pm*** long, slow, clap ***
I am agog. Good on ya, Plum Creek.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:21 pmmore real change….this, feinstien & Rockyfella upset…..
Where’s all those guys who said it was going to be bush all over again?
January 6th, 2009 at 12:29 pmTake note of this: the corporation involved did the right thing. And the sitting Forest Service chief objected. That’s the Bush administration in a nutshell.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:42 pmAlthough I agree with your assessment of the bush admin, I don’t think the corp did the right thing for the right reason. I believe they see what is coming and it won’t be favorable to what they originally very much wanted to do.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:50 pmI suspect this has nothing to do with “the lack of receptivity”, and everything to do with the tanking economy. It’s hard to believe that the execs at Plum Creek Timber suddenly got a conscience. I’m guessing thie business forecast showed it is a bad time to expand operations. So, they backed off their deal with the Bush administration to rape the forest, and used the move for PR.
January 6th, 2009 at 1:22 pmPlum Creek didn’t get a conscience. They got that they would have an unholy fight on their hands if they started building roads and subdivisions in Missoula and Ravalli counties in Montana, putting a huge burden on local and USFS fire fighters. We know here in Montana that those huge wilderness homes are built by out of state rich people and we are struggling to provide services to Montanans as it is.
Don’t believe that anyone here thinks they did “the right thing”. A business decision pure and simple.
January 6th, 2009 at 2:42 pmIf a tree fell in the forest on Mark Rey, would anyone give a shit? I would be quite happy to see him sharing a cell with Griles and Norton.
January 6th, 2009 at 2:48 pmFred Says:
Although I agree with your assessment of the bush admin, I don’t think the corp did the right thing for the right reason.
That’s just how corporations work. But corporations that take a broader view of how the impacts of their actions affect their stock price in the long term can very much behave as if they were governed by someone with a conscience. For example, basic investor confidence is the reason that many corporations avoid looking for loopholes to fudge their numbers; even if the SEC wouldn’t nail ‘em for it, they want to be seen as “upstanding” in order to keep their stock price steady.
Probably most of what Plum Creek Timber does is dependent on being viewed positively in the upcoming political climate. So it’s good for their long-term bottom line to act as if they were good people. With corporations, that’s the best you can expect.
So they decided there was too much heat on this deal, that it was overreaching, and backed out.
The point is, corporations can behave responsibly. For them though it’s not so much a question of “having a conscience” as it is of having an intelligent view of their long term viability, and taking all kinds of factors into account.
January 6th, 2009 at 5:03 pmGoing home to Montana was always “interesting”… an opinionated liberal tree-hugging California artist vs an entire family of hunters and loggers living in the 19th century. My willingness to debate, as an educated and intelligent outsider, made them all uneasy: women were supposed to be in the kitchen discussing recipes for baby food, not in the livingroom discussing business with the men. We did discuss issues and not people, so managed to argue points without losing grip.
One of my cousins was a manager for Plum Creek (this would be near Columbia Falls, MT). About a decade ago, Billy was lamenting that they’d have to close mills and lay off men because there were no more trees to cut… despite the fact that they’d started planting a tree for each one harvested. I lament that I put on my best “told you so” voice, when I reminded him that 20 years earlier I’d told him that they needed to plant THREE trees for each one harvested to account for natural conditions (fire, flood) and to grow their holdings.
If Plum Creeek had really engaged in good forestry practices, planting mixed growth and extra trees 30 years ago, they’d be stewards over more trees than they could log, not owners of clearcut and slashed and eroded nakedness. Where’s the profit if you harvest but do not plant for the future?
January 6th, 2009 at 9:01 pmThey can’t pave over all their mistakes.
hauksdottir, Good for you and thanks. As a side note, couple of years ago I spent some time volunteering with some National Park Service folks in Glacier NP. I was thrilled to find the level of environmental concern was quite high. A couple of the locals were even bigger tree-huggers than I am. Montana has a lot of beautiful places left that Bush was not able to destroy and has some Montanans doing their best to keep it that way.
January 6th, 2009 at 9:59 pmThe real battleground in the fight against Plum Creek’s development plans is at the local level. Unfortunately, the planning and zoning laws in Montana are very weak. Montanans have historically greatly cherished their property rights, and as a result vast swaths of private land in the state remain unzoned. Plum Creek, as one would expect, has every intention of exercising its property rights to the fullest extent. Rules intended to protect yeoman ranchers and farmers will now be abused by a giant corporation (or “real estate trust,“ to be more accurate.)
One of the worst Montana statutes gives Plum Creek, as a large owner of timber lands, the ability in some instances to exercise a veto power over zoning regulations enacted by a democratically elected county board. Thus, a for-profit business can resist environmental regulation intended to protect some of the most beautiful and ecologically sensitive lands in the lower 48 states.
Paradoxically, despite Montana’s traditional solicitude for private property rights, Montana’s constitution, adopted in 1972, includes language elevating environmental values to a higher level than can be found in any other state constitution. In Montana, each resident has an alienable individual right to a clean and healthful environment, and the Legislature has a constitutional duty to make this right real and enforceable.
The Montana statute giving Plum Creek this veto power seems to be of dubious legal validity in light of such inspiring constitutional language. The veto statute flouts environmental values by allowing large landowners to resist governmental attempts at environmental protection in favor of the pursuit of private profit. The statute is also patently undemocratic in that it creates a preferred class of citizens who can resist the exercise of governmental power and authority in a way that no ordinary citizen can—and at the expense of the environment. Further, the statute delegates what amounts to unbridled legislative power to private parties (including, as a practical matter, corporations) who are free to pursue their naked self interest at the expense of the public welfare. Similar statutes in other states have been struck down in court.
The Montana Legislature should avoid the court fights that will inevitably occur over this veto provision by eliminating the provision in its current legislative session.
January 10th, 2009 at 10:34 pm