President Donald Trump’s executive orders to bring “attacks” on the American logging industry to a halt by stifling timber imports and ramping up domestic production are receiving praise after trade and environmental policies “shut down” the industry for years, according to logging executive Scott Dane.
“We welcome those [executive orders] and look forward to rebuilding the American timber industry,” Dane, executive director for the American Loggers Council (ALC) said Tuesday on the Fox News Channel.
The ALC, according to a biography sheet from the House of Representatives, is a nonprofit trade association “comprised of 30 timber industry state associations representing nearly 10,000 companies and 50,000 employees.”
TRUMP ISSUES EXECUTIVE ORDERS ADDRESSING LUMBER PRODUCTION, NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS
Trump signed a pair of executive orders on Saturday to address the need for an immediate increase in U.S. lumber production and to zero in on lumber imports’ threat to national security. The orders aim to update guidance on production, streamline permitting and assess possible national security risks imported lumber allegedly poses.
One executive order titled “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production” states that the “production of timber, lumber, paper, bioenergy, and other wood products is critical to our nation’s well-being.”
The order went on to highlight how recent wildfires have demonstrated the need for “forest management and wildfire risk reduction projects” to save American lives.
Along with the American Biomass Energy Association, the ALC met with Trump a few weeks before he signed off on the orders to present a “roadmap to recovery” complete with “challenges and solutions,” Dane said.
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Speaking to “FOX & Friends First” co-host Todd Piro, he argued that the overregulated, import-heavy methods prior to Trump’s changes hindered the U.S. timber industry and favored the least expensive options, regardless of where they came from.
“They [companies importing wood] wanted the cheapest lumber they could get, so it’s a little of a Walmart economic mentality that we want to have the cheapest products out there, no matter where they come from, whether they’re sustainably managed forests and stuff like that… so that’s where the benefit has gone to,” he said.
FOX Business’ Alexandra Koch and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
