West Coast Wood Exports Undercut Economy and Environment
West Coast Wood Exports Undercut Economy and Environment
- by Samantha Chirillo, Energy Justice Network
[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"154","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"365","style":"width: 333px; height: 253px; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px; float: left;","width":"480"}}]]Since the European Union (EU) countries set high carbon reduction standards and counted biomass energy as carbon neutral and renewable, biomass exports from the southeastern U.S. have skyrocketed.
Now, as Japan looks for an alternative to nuclear energy, as U.S. corporations get tax breaks to relocate facilities to the countries of least regulation, as trans-Pacific trade agreements give these corporations power over governments, and as Oregon’s Congressional delegation plans to log more public forest, west coast ports are preparing for log and biomass export expansion. In 2013 alone, log and chip exports from the northwestern U.S. already doubled, according to Public Interest Forester Roy Keene. Exports are the surest path to forest decline, as history has shown, says Keene.