ALC Members Lobby Congress, Air Issues...More than 60 members of the American Loggers Council met in Washington March 18-21 in a coordinated effort to present issues important to the timber harvesting industry to lawmakers. Caterpillar Forest Products, John Deere, Forestry Mutual Insurance and the Southern Loggers Cooperative also sent representatives to the gathering.
Scores of Capitol Hill visits included discussions on major issues such as the Youth Careers in Logging Act, truck weight reform, comprehensive Forest Service timber management reform, and fire suppression funding on federal lands. ALC members were briefed on these four issues by ALC staff and heard a presentation from Frank Gladics pertaining to possible reform of the USFS Small Business Administration (SBA) setaside program for timber sales.
Visits included a face-to-face with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to discuss the merits of his Flame Act Amendment that has been introduced in the Senate. It would help eliminate the practice of “fire-borrowing” by the Forest Service, which takes dollars from other budget line items to cover catastrophic fire events and does not leave the agency the funds it needs to perform land management activities that would help alleviate the occurrence of catastrophic fires.
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