Time to Do Your Part

This morning, seven IHLA representatives met with Senator Greg Walker in Edinburgh, Indiana, in a wonderful example of the IHLA's grass roots lobbying potential. Those attending were Carter Rothrock, MacBeath Hardwoods, Bill Costoplos, Amos-Hill, Inc.; Gary Cox, Troy Law and Larry Leonard, all of David R. Webb Company; IFWOA President Robert Woodling, and myself.

This coming Thursday, October 29, there will be a meeting of the legislature's Interim Study Committee on Natural Resources. On the agenda for that meeting is a proposal to ban logging in the Back Country Areas of Morgan-Monroe and Yellowood State Forests. Senator Walker is one of eight members of this bi-partisan, bi-cameral committee.

This committee will decide whether this proposal has merit to be recommended for passage to the General Assembly in January, 2010. With a positive recommendation from this committee, the bill would have a good chance of passage, since the issue will have been studied thoroughly. Without the committee's "thumbs-up," a bill might still be introduced, but its chances of passage would be greatly diminished, especially if it was defeated soundly in the Interim Committee.

When I first joined IHLA nearly 11 years ago, members were still smarting that our industry had been asleep at the wheel while these types of initiatives eventually led to a no-cut policy on the Hoosier National Forest. No matter what other issue we may address, nothing seems to rile our members more than efforts to keep the DNR from doing their statutory duty of managing the state forests for multiple use.

So here we are, with an opportunity to nip it in the bud. Time to show up or shut up. If we want to send a message to our legislators that we are an industry united around the issue of sustainable forest management, then our members need to be seen in numbers that day. Your association has done its part. We have met individually with the member of this committee, and in some cases those meetings have inlcuded our members who are constituents of these lawmakers.

The hearing is at the Indiana Statehouse, Room 404, beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday morning. Hope to see you there!