The president's promise to rejuvenate the timber industry has yet to show up in the Forest Service's nationwide sales and harvests.

President Donald Trump swept into office with a promise to ramp up the timber business on national forests.

So far, they’re just treading water.

The Forest Service reported relatively flat timber harvests and sales for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, three-quarters of which was covered by the Trump administration.
 

According to the agency’s cut-and-sold reports, national forests cut 2.52 billion board feet of timber for the fiscal year, down slightly from the 2.66 billion board feet cut during the last full fiscal year of the Biden administration.

Sales volume totaled 2.95 billion board feet, a slight increase from the prior year but a drop from 3.08 billion board feet the year before that.

The suppressed returns reflect some of the challenges in meeting Trump’s directive to use national forests to reduce the nation’s reliance on wood imports. Those include wildfires, market conditions that determine whether companies want to bid on sales, and the Forest Service’s ability to set up and run timber sales after the administration whittled the workforce by several thousand people.
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Source: eenews.net