Wall Street-owned timber companies in Oregon reap tax-cut benefits while rural counties lose logging jobs, revenue - Entrepreneur Generations

Logging has long been a critical industry in Oregon, though timber sales dropped in the 1990s because of federal efforts to protect endangered species in national forests. That meant lost jobs and revenue in rural counties.

"For decades, politicians, suit-and-tie timber executives and caulk-booted tree fallers alike have blamed the federal government and urban environmental advocates for kneecapping the state’s most important industry," but that narrative ignores another reason for the decline of rural timber towns, and one that's still happening even though logging is booming again these days, according to an investigation created in partnership with ProPublica's Local Reporting Network.

"Wall Street real estate trusts and investment funds began gaining control over the state’s private forestlands. They profited at the expense of rural communities by logging more aggressively with fewer environmental protections than in neighboring states, while reaping the benefits of timber tax cuts that have cost counties at least $3 billion in the past three decades," Tony Schick of Oregon Public Broadcasting, Rob Davis of The Oregonian, and Lylla Younes of ProPublica report. "Half of the 18 counties in Oregon’s timber-dominant region lost more money from tax cuts on private forests than from the reduction of logging on federal lands, the investigation shows."

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/384JV4F Wall Street-owned timber companies in Oregon reap tax-cut benefits while rural counties lose logging jobs, revenue - Entrepreneur Generations

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