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Timber industry sues to lift shutdown ban

Herald and News 10/16/13

GRANTS PASS (AP) — Western timber companies have gone to court to lift the logging ban on national forests due to the government shutdown, arguing the government has no authority under timber sale contracts to force loggers to stop working.

Three wood products companies and a timber industry association filed the lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Medford against the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order lifting the logging shutdown, arguing direction from the Office of Management and Budget does not require suspension of operations on a federal contract so long as direct supervision is inessential to the contractor’s work. It adds that some of the contracts involve work that is improving public safety by reducing wildfire danger and removing dead trees in danger of falling in campgrounds.

The companies also say the agencies failed to file notice of the shutdown and give the timber industry a chance to respond.

“It makes zero sense for the cash-strapped government to shut down operations that pay millions into the United States Treasury,” said Tom Partin , president of the American Forest Resources Council, the timber industry group that filed the lawsuit. “A timber operation isn’t something you can turn on and off like a light switch. Once equipment has to be moved out, it can be months before it can be moved back in.

“What is happening to our members is particularly frustrating when other businesses with contracts to operate on federal land, such as ski areas, are being allowed to continue working,” Partin added in a statement

The Forest Service and BLM had no comment on the lawsuit.

The timber companies that joined the lawsuit are Murphy Company of Eugene, which employs 600 people in six mills; High Cascade Inc. of Carson, Wash., which procures timber for a mill in Carson, Wash., and another in Hood River, Ore.; and South Bay Timber LLC, a Californiabased company that logs in Oregon.

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