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ELKINS -- Four local lawmakers talked about the timber industry during the annual Elkins-Randolph County Chamber of Commerce Legislative Luncheon at The Arts Center.
Delegate Ty Nestor, R-District 66; Delegate Elias Coop-Gonzalez, R-District 67; state Sen. Robert Karnes, R-11th District; and state Sen. Bill Hamilton, R-11 District, took part in the event.
Sidney Megna, who served as moderator, asked the legislators what they were doing to protect timber.
Karnes said West Virginia has come a long way in the field of timber management over the years.
"One of the things I found interesting when I first got elected was that in 1920, roughly, over 80 percent of West Virginia had been deforested," Karnes said. "I can remember as a kid my grandfather over in Upshur County would tell me about how one time the land over there had nothing but cows and grass...
"We actually have an industry that takes great interest in making sure that they have a forward look. We have some really good timber management in West Virginia and we have what I think are broadly pretty responsible companies... Overall we are doing pretty well in that area."
Hamilton talked about carbon sequestration, which is the process of capturing, securing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A bill that was introduced would allow state-owned land to be leased or sold for economic development projects that remove harmful gas emissions from the atmosphere and store it underground.
"The biggest thing in the timber industry right now is the carbon sequestration," Hamilton said. "There is a lot of misinformation that has been put out there by different folks. We tried to run a bill and the house would not pick the bill up. We need to sit down in the next 90 days and get everybody in a room and discuss this properly and come out with some resolutions.
"The timber industry is not going to go away, carbon sequestration is not going to kill the cutting of timber. Those are some of the things that have been promoted by some people. I don't think we are cutting more than 10 or 15 percent of what we have. Of course, timber grows, it's not like coal, (where) if you take it out it's not going to grow back. But timber does if you do it properly."
There are two main types of carbon sequestration, biological and geological. About 25 percent of global carbon emissions are captured by landscapes such as forests.
Nestor added his thoughts..
"The primary concern that I have with the bill was that it imposed a very, very high tax," Nestor said. "It would make property owners liable for more taxes. The taxes are primarily supposed to be paid by big corporations with big pockets, but if they didn't pay the taxes it would fall back on West Virginia citizens, and it was a steep tax.
"That really, really needs to be looked at because we have to strike a balance between property owners' interest and the interest to receive compensation from land owners in West Virginia, in comparison with how it may affect our jobs and our industry that has been very beneficial to our state…
"We want to make sure as a legislature that our jobs and industry are protected, that our lumber companies that rely on the timber industry are protected, and of course our landowners are protected while we try our best to help the environment," Nestor said.
Coop-Gonzalez also spoke on the issue.
"I think the key word with this is balance. For me this is kind of a tough subject because I really think the government should have the least amount of restrictions on the market," said Coop-Gonzalez. "When you look at carbon sequestration, it's between a private land owner and a business in California or something.
"You wonder why Google or one of these Fortune 500 companies are carbon neutral, it's because they come into these agreements. There's an amount of carbon these trees take out and that offsets the amount that the company creates. So I'm still a little bit torn on it, but balance is going to be key."
"This conversation started about six years ago and when these conversations first started, these carbon sequestration programs actually started with managed timber, meaning you could still cut but you had to cut responsibly," Karnes said. "So there weren't going to be any changes in how we managed timber in West Virginia six years ago when this came through.
"Recently an outfit out of California bought 700,000 acres in West Virginia, for the purpose of sequestration of those 700,000 acres of timber. They bought it from a timber company and you can imagine how many jobs are instantly lost when you take 700,000 acres out of the harvest schedule.
"But that wasn't the end of it, that was kind of the warning shot. What is now happening is that more and more companies are coming in and they don't want to manage timber, they want to completely shut down any harvesting on that land... These aren't West Virginia outfits, they are California outfits buying these carbon credits," Karnes said. "They don't care a thing about West Virginia's economy."