He also has some choice things to say about how the public employee unions are destroying our state. I doubt that I agree with everything this guy stands for, but I think a little push back is a good thing if you want to at least kind of control the foxes who run the chicken coop in this state.

As iindependent as a hog on ice??? What a compliment by "a friend for years." Then again, I guess she'd know.

Interesting article for sure.

It is refreshing to see someone with values and an understanding of the big picture stand up and help out even when they do not have a direct "benefit".

I'm not sure he's going to succeed with Kremer running his show, though. That guy turns a lot of people off.

It would be refreshing to see more balance in the metro area, especially Portland. Thirty years of Dem control have certainly demonstrated that weird isn’t working.

The one-party nature of this city, and increasingly the state, has become unhealthy. Even if I don't agree with all his stances, a little opposition and debate is a good thing.

"The state has mostly moved on from its timber past, a boom-and-bust economic cycle that battered the state’s forests and, in the end, betrayed hundreds of thousands of rural families who had counted on middle-class lives earned from the Oregon woods."

To be clear, the environmentalists shutting down logging on federal lands betrayed these families, not the timber industry.

Unfortunately most Democrats, progressives and especially planners do not understand even the most basic economics.
They think government can create jobs
They think restricting supply has no effect on price
They think you can have a vibrant economy without manufacturing.
They think you can have a vibrant economy while putting most of the state's lands off limits to economic activity.
They think high taxes and many petty regulations have no effect on economic well being.
They think that stealing money from schools, social service, police and fire and giving it to developers, increases tax revenue for schools, social service, police and fire.

That is why Oregon is comparatively less well off than it was a few decades ago - economic illiterates are destroying our standard of living. They do it in the name of social justice and fairness as their own policies are driving low income people, and especially minorities, out of town.
thanks
JK

to be clear, it wasn't the environmentalists who shut down the logging in Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc. ("The Big Woods" was set in Wisconsin). Timber capitalists cut it all down as fast as they could to make more profit--that's what they're in business for, not saving forests. The timber industry in Oregon also mechanized as fast as it could, in order to maximize profits, which is what disappeared a lot of Oregon logging jobs. There's only circa 10% of old growth left; the environmentalists didn't save the 90%, the timber industry cut it down. They're still cutting whatever they can. When the timber industry is completely gone it won't be because of the environmentalists. It'll be because there isn't timber left on which to make a profit.

JK says it all.

Well, almost. Now this comes up:

http://nwlaborpress.org/2012/07/sickleave-2/

"the environmentalists didn't save the 90%, the timber industry cut it down. They're still cutting whatever they can."

False. The Enviros not only prohibited any cutting, they left it to overgrow, and become a fire trap. There is nothing allowed for them to cut (legally, due to all the enviro lawsuits), so "cutting whatever they can" still equals zero. Even in the 300,000 to 400,000 acres burned in Oregon in the last few years, the enviro whackos allowed zero salvage... just let it rot.

"When the timber industry is completely gone it won't be because of the environmentalists. It'll be because there isn't timber left on which to make a profit."

Yeah, sure, nothing, no trees left, all cut down. Right...

The most amazing, stark difference between government managed land and the tree farms owned by private industry is near the St Helens eruption 32 years ago. Government land left to waste, but right along side the Weyerhaeuser land now has 30 year old timber almost ready to harvest. The same natural disaster took out all the trees. The government land still has the rotten match-sticks laying there, but the Weyehauser land was managed.

Yes, managed! As if the property owner new that if they replanted right away, then in 40 years they could harvest a crop, for profit. Who are the better stewards of the land, a private land owner or some enviro whacko?

So you pass laws on how they can cut it and how they must replant it. I'm not saying it should be unregulated. Just that it was a mistake to slam on the breaks. Timber grows back at a calculable rate and is one of our state's few natural economic advantages. We should use it

If you want to see where one party rule in concert with big unions takes a city I would direct your attention to Detroit...

the environmentalists didn't save the 90%, the timber industry cut it down.

Complete BS, "Big Timber" couldn't cut down 1% of Oregon's forests even if they tried (and more to the point, they have no financial incentive to do so).

Once the environmental whack jobs got the spotted owl on the endangered species list, rural Oregon's strongest industry died almost completely. Rural towns were promised tourism would more than replace the living wage jobs and economic prosperity that the timber industry provided for generations. Instead they got double-digit unemployment and rampant methamphetamine trafficking problems destroying their communities. Of course the urban-dwelling elitist enviro-nuts couldn't care less and laugh at the fact that these communities are devoid of work and falling apart.

If Stimson used its forests like the so-called "environmentalists" claim every logging company does, they wouldn't be in business after 160 years, now would they? The relatively brief time in Oregon history (mostly the 1980s) when the forests were overcut was due to buyouts by companies who didn't have a stake here. Now we all keep paying for that. Even though NOW there is more timber on those lands than in almost 100 years. Mostly tied up in lawsuits, rotting or waiting to burn.

A lot of good comments here. Unfortunately in the political battles they have yet to hold sway.

I wish Mr. Miller all the best.

I'd like to see a profile of the people "turned off" by Mr. Miller.

America needs more businessmen like Mr Miller- we would have more jobs and the forests certainly would not be in the precarious situation that they are in today. A firestorm waiting to happen.
Actually it is already happening-look at this past summer in Colorado, Oregon, Washington and California.