CounterPunch.org – Some reporters still mistakenly write that commercial logging makes money for the Forest Service. It doesn’t — and this is an important issue because citizens need to know that politicians are actually sacrificing the public’s national forest resources and billions of federal tax dollars to enable the private profit of the timber industry.
Adding to these losses are significant “externalized” costs to the public that the Forest Service does not count, such as pre-commercial thinning of forests that will later be clearcut; fruitless attempts to keep sediment from newly bulldozed logging roads and clearcuts out of streams; and the equally futile attempt to stop new noxious weed infestations brought in on bulldozers, trucks, and other logging equipment.