The Lacey Act, expanded in 2008 to help stanch illegal logging throughout the world, helps preserve the value in forests, according to an opinion piece from Sierra Club Trade Representative Ilana Solomon posted at the Huffington Post. The proposed changes to the Lacey Act have received unprecedented attention in high-profile opinion pieces, including a recent Wall Street Journal piece written by Henry Juszkiewicz, CEO of Gibson Guitar, whose company is currently at the center of a Lacey investigation.
The Lacey Act, expanded in 2008 to help stanch illegal logging throughout the world, helps preserve the value in forests, according to an opinion piece from Sierra Club Trade Representative Ilana Solomon posted at the Huffington Post. The proposed changes to the Lacey Act have received unprecedented attention in high-profile opinion pieces, including a recent Wall Street Journal piece written by Henry Juszkiewicz, CEO of Gibson Guitar, whose company is currently at the center of a Lacey investigation.
To help build her case, Solomon points out that the U.S. forest sector employs nearly 900,000 workers and produces about $175 billion in products each year. In addition, forests hold ecological value by helping regulate the global climate and being home to indigenous communities that depend on forests for survival.
Today, Solomon says Lacey is under attack by U.S. Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) and Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.), who, in October 2011, introduced H.R. 3210: the Retailers and Entertainers Lacey Implementation and Enforcement Fairness Act, or RELIEF Act. The bill would limit Lacey's declaration requirement to solid wood items imported only for commerce; reduce the penalty for an unknowing, first-time offense to $250 (regardless of whether the offender is a corporation or person); and change the law so that goods possessed by an "innocent owner" are not subject to automatic forfeiture.
"H.R. 3210 would allow manufacturers to keep stolen wood, dismantling one of the Lacey Act's most powerful deterrents to importing illegal wood," Solomon wrote. Further, by limiting Lacey's declaration requirement, the RELIEF Act would exclude "pulp, paper, paperboard and related products, which make up the largest portion of imports covered under the Lacey Act amendments" of 2008.
"With these provisions," Solomon wrote, "this anti-forestry bill would severely undermine efforts to stop illegal logging and trade, and hurt our environment, the American economy, and American jobs."
Recently, The Hardwood Federation, a lobbying group of which the NWFA is a part, called on those opposing the RELIEF Act to contact their legislators.
