President Donald Trump aims to put the federal government back in the timber business.
But the Forest Service may lose billions of dollars trying. That’s one takeaway from people and organizations closely familiar with the Forest Service’s timber program, which for years has focused on tree-cutting as a way to maintain healthier forests, not as a commercial enterprise.
Trump’s Saturday executive order calls for the “immediate expansion” of U.S. timber production, citing the country’s over-reliance on imports.
“The federal timber program is the epitome of waste, fraud and abuse,” said John Talberth, senior economist at the Center for Sustainable Economy, who’s estimated the losses from timber sales by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management at as much as $2 billion a year.
