Editing 78-10-A3 (section)

=== Transcript ===
I'm sure I won't surprise you by saying that lumber prices, which are about
15 per cent of all construction, are a major factor in the high cost of building.
Some contractors find it almost impossible to give a reasonable estimate on a
project because of the uncertainty of lumber prices. Can all of this be laid
at the door of the lumber industry--or is there something to be done that is
beyond its power?

Columnist John Chamberlain recently gathered together some information having
to do with lumber forests which points to an attainable solution.
Once again, it is a simple matter of using common sense.

The problem is, of course, the high cost of new homes. Our private forest
industry at present plants more trees than it cuts. No longer does the industry
denude the forest land and then move on. But that industry only owns 16 per cent
of the nation's standing softwood. States own about 12 per cent, but the federal
government owns 52 per cent. So, as Chamberlain points out, the U.S. Department
of Agriculture could be the key to lower housing costs.

Right now the Forest service (a unit of the Agriculture Department) sells
about 12-and-a-half billion board feet of lumber annually to the saw mills.
The forest industry, from its much smaller holdings, sells almost 16-and-a-half
billion and another 14-and-a-half comes from non-industrial sources. All this
indicates that Uncle Sam's 52 per cent offers the best chance of increased
supply.

Now I'm sure all of us want conservation of trees in our national forests.
No one would suggest wholesale cutting to meet commercial demand. But what
John Chamberlain has discovered is that the federal Government is allowing
lumber to go to waste each year when it could increase the supply by six billion
board feet.

Trees aren't like minerals which stay where they are until someone removes
them from the earth. Trees grow up, they may get sick, they grow old and die.
This apparently is not recognized by some environmental extremists who confuse
conservation with preservation. Dead trees are pure waste and are harmful to
the forest.

Take the example of Lassen National forest in California. This preserve
allows a cut of 150 million board feet a year. It could raise that to 268 million
board feet if the timber cutters were allowed to harvest only the over mature and
dying trees. Lassen would be a better national forest and one much safer from
the threat of forest fire if the additional cutting were done. As it is, it's
choked with rotting wood.

Chamberlain points out that this additional cutting in Lassen National Forest
alone would also provide an increase of 1200 jobs in California. And it would
lower the price of lumber. So what's the federal government waiting for? 

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
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