Free Post Week 6

For this week’s free post, I decided to do some article readings related to the government shutdown’s impact on forestry. “Federal budget troubles spilled into the woods this week, with logging contractors receiving notices to stop harvesting timber on national forests” (Kramer). The governmental struggle in Washington D.C. has affected a logging company and disrupted the jobs of foresters that work with specific logging companies like this one. This logging company, Vaagen Brothers Lumber Co, has a specified time period on their timber sales that may have irreversible consequences attached to the, now 14 day, partial government shutdown. Seasonal changes can restrict the amount of logging that the company is able to preform and further damage the pay of everyone involved in the timber sales or entire operation.

The article goes on to describe the unexpectedness of the government shutdown. Timber companies were able to continue logging during the government shutdown of 1995. Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council in Portland, had this to say, "Now the Forest Service has issued a blanket policy that they want to have all projects cleaned up and put to bed within seven days," Partin said. "It came very quickly. It's a very short timeline that could and will impact a lot of companies." A very short notice on something so drastic is unfair to the workers in this operation and when pay becomes restricted lives can become changed. Partin plans to approach the government with lawsuits if the shutdown continues. Hopefully, too much time won’t have elapsed to terminally damage the operation.

Works Cited

Kramer, Becky. "National Forest Logging Suspended by Shutdown." McClatchy - Tribune Business NewsOct 12 2013. ProQuest. Web. 15 Oct. 2013 .