Charles Taylor: “Exactly. The implications of that is going to be severe, not only economically, because of the thousands of jobs and…”

“Exactly. The implications of that is going to be severe, not only economically, because of the thousands of jobs and tens of thousands of jobs to be lost, but environmentally. Because as we pointed out again and again, we use wood products for many things. That table in front of you is an example. If we do not make it out of wood, we make it out of a finite product, usually plastic or metal. Both are finite and harsher on the environment. We also need the plastics for other uses. We need the renewable resource of wood. Throughout eastern America, the Appalachian hardwood in the Forest Service, I would say 50 percent of the timber, the Appalachian hardwoods that are going to be collected in the future, is going to come from Forest Service lands, supports the furniture industry that not only supplies homes across this Nation, but is a substantial export market for us, value added. The other factor I would like to point out in the total object we are talking about is all the folks who want to stop harvest in the forest do not tell us what is going to happen to replace all those forest products that the people need and a growing population needs, much less the jobs that will be abolished.”