HB 3103: the Timber Lawsuit Bill

Sponsored chiefly by Representatives Mark Owens (R-Crane), Cyrus Javadi (R-Tillamook), Christine Drazen (R-Canby), Darin Harbick (R-Rainbow), and Senator Suzanne Weber (R-Tillamook), HB 3103 sets up a process for the Department of Forestry to forecast timber harvests. If the state’s timber harvests fall below the forecast, counties that have property managed by the state would be able to sue for lost royalties.

Why is this even needed? The answer should be obvious to most residents of rural Oregon. Not only are there environmental laws on the books that restrict logging, but when the government owns land, it can self-impose restrictions on logging above and beyond those laws. In the 1930s, many Oregon counties acquired large timberland tracts through property tax lien foreclosures. In an attempt to replace that tax revenue with timber royalties, these counties entered a partnership with the state to have the land managed by the Oregon Department of Forestry on behalf of the counties. This was a time when Oregon fully utilized timber as a renewable resource. Increasingly, the state has failed to harvest timber that it could have legally logged because, as a matter of policy, the state is trying to maximize benefits other than the original intent of this partnership with counties.

This bill provides an interesting solution that appears to have relatively high bipartisan support. For Republicans, this is a chance to either increase logging or require the state to compensate rural Oregon for the policy choice of not doing so. Democrats may see this bill’s language as they see the kicker law, confident that they will be able to manage the forecast in a way that reduces logging. Either way, at a minimum, the state’s policy choice to limit logging on state-managed county land will become more transparent.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of We were winning when I was there.