Political Quotes

“my office was just advised by the Department of Agriculture that they have seen fit to cancel timber contracts affecting the Alaska Pulp Co. and, as a consequence of that, my State faces a future of some 1,100 Alaskans losing their jobs. These are jobs in Wrangell, Sitka, Hoona, Corner Bay, False Island, Rowan Bay, small communities that depended on the Alaska lumber and pulp timber contracts to provide an assured supply of pulp timber so that the pulp mill in Sitka and the sawmill in Wrangell can continue to operate. Madam President, these are relatively small communities. Wrangell has a population of about 2,300. The sawmill is a main source of employment of about 300 jobs associated with longshoring and timber cutting. While the Sitka pulp mill is down, every effort has been made to try to convince the Forest Service that the sanctity of the contract should be maintained, and that time should be allocated so that a medium-density fiberboard plant can be considered and placed in the pulp mill. Now, what we have here is an extraordinary example, I think, of the Clinton administration not practicing what it preaches. This is rural America, Madam President. These are situations in my State, as far as the pulp mill is concerned, where we have very little year-round manufacturing. As a matter of fact, we have two major plants that operate year round, one in Sitka and one in Ketchikan. The one in Sitka was forced to close for economic reasons.”