LETTERS: GOVERNOR WANTS TO TRACK TIMBER

To the editor:

Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan has taken it upon himself to begin state regulation of private woodlands by issuing an executive order requiring that wood bound for chip mills be identified concerning where the wood was harvested.

Carnahan has no legal authority to do this. He's following President Clinton's example of issuing executive orders to create unconstitutional policy that Congress did not approve.

Carnahan seems troubled by the "clear-cut" buzzword in the context of commercial timber harvesting, but not by clear-cutting by fire and reducing harvestable timber to ashes through prescribed burning of forests done by the Department of Conservation and the Department of Natural Resources with the blessing of mainstream environmental organizations. Carnahan must think that clear-cutting is an environmental sin only if a private landowner makes money on the timber.

If a private landowner decides to sell his timber to a chip mill or to any other buyer, that is the landowner's decision and not the state's or the Sierra Club's. Labeling wood as to location of origin is the first step in state government control of private timber.

WILLIAM F. JUD

Fredericktown