TOO MANY WOULD LOCK UP OUR RESOURCES, WRECKING ECONOMY

A few weeks ago, in this space, we acknowledged the wisdom of a phrase driven home by a monthly publication called Imprimis. This is a free newsletter, published by tiny Hillsdale College in Michigan. Imprimis like the internationally respected college that spawned it is devoted to a principled defense of the free market, limited government, traditional values and a superb liberal arts education based on the timeless wisdom of Western Civilization.

As I noted a few weeks back, every issue of Imprimis carries the simple motto: Because ideas have consequences.

As it is with so many other notions, so it is with the positions of the radical environmentalists, or "preservationists", among us. That is to say, their ideas have consequences. To the extent their ideas hold sway over public policy at any level, those consequences are disastrous. These are not abstractions; far from it. We're talking about real consequences, in the real world of everyday life, for working people. These are consequences visited upon people you and I know and care about laborers and loggers and realtors, homebuilders and appliance salesmen, union carpenters and electricians not to mention first-time homebuyers who are priced out of the market.

Consider the following information from the American Forest Resource Alliance, a group of wood products producers. (The forest products industry is a hundreds-of-millions of dollars industry in Missouri; it's even bigger in other southern and western states).

Lumber prices reached new highs last week and promise to have a dramatic impact on the cost of new housing construction and renovations in the months ahead. These lumber price hikes stem from decisions by federal agencies and courts and lawsuits by preservationists to stop timber harvesting on national forests, particularly in the Pacific northwest and California, said Alberto Goetzl, an economist with the American Forest Resource Alliance.

He noted that the "Random Lengths" framing composite, a frequently watched price index, reached a record $303 per thousand board feet last week. "This is a 45 percent increase since January and the highest price since August 1979, when housing demand sent the index to $300 per thousand board feet," Goetzl said.

For every 20 percent increase in the price of lumber materials, 65,000 prospective buyers of new homes are priced out of the market, according to a study released last year by the National Association of Home Builders and the American Forest Resource Alliance.

Goetzl said lumber markets were responding to federal actions. In May, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in response to a federal court order, proposed that 11.6 million acres of prime forestland in Washington, Oregon and northern California be set aside as critical habitat for the northern spotted owl.

Later that month, a federal judge in Seattle ordered a halt to all 1991 timber sales off federal forests in the tri-state region.

"Right now, the timber supply line is suffering from arterial sclerosis, so there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty," said Goetzl. "Lumber buyers are trying to secure supplies for delivery later in the year when the pipeline from the region may be totally blocked."

Lumber markets react to changes in demand as well as supply. Today, demand has improved from a few months ago, Goetzl said, but mostly as a result of anticipated needs, rather than of more construction. Housing starts are still only moderately higher than a few months ago.

When demand picks up significantly, as many analysts expect will happen later this year, and timber supply grows increasingly problematic, new record prices may be set, Goetzl said. Additionally, preservationist groups have requested more injunctions against harvesting, which could further worsen an already bad situation.

Only Congress can resolve the issue, said Goetzl. The Alliance and organized labor have joined in support of the Forests and Families Protection Act, which would provide a degree of timber supply and worker certainty at the same time it provides for conservation of owls and old growth forests.

It's time for organized labor, together with all other honest working people, to rise up against the environmental elitists who would lock up America's marvelous resources and dump her economy into the tank. Our friends the Sierra Clubbers should be reminded: People are ecology, too.