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page_range: [323, 331]
breadcrumb: ["Appendix E: Submissions & Feedback", "35. Oregon Forest Industries Council"]
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    - "../../.extracted/pages/page-0327.txt"
    - "../../.extracted/pages/page-0328.txt"
    - "../../.extracted/pages/page-0329.txt"
    - "../../.extracted/pages/page-0330.txt"
    - "../../.extracted/pages/page-0331.txt"
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# 35. Oregon Forest Industries Council

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## TL;DR  *(generated · confidence: high)*

The Oregon Forest Industries Council submits eight recommendations to the Prosperity Council, urging treatment of forest products as a priority traded sector. OFIC argues the sector sustains 62,300 jobs with above-average wages in rural Oregon, contributes external revenue, and should be strengthened through predictable regulation, respect for the Private Forest Accord, support for mass timber, industrial land protection, active forest management on state and federal lands, and carbon policies that account for wood product lifecycle benefits.

**Key points** *(each cites a PDF page)*:

- Oregon's forest sector directly employed 62,300 people in 2023 with average annual wage of $71,900, compared to state average of $68,283. ([p. 325](https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Documents/Oregon%20Prosperity%20Council%20Report_June%202026.pdf#page=325))
- Forest-sector employment comprises six percent of all employment in rural counties versus two percent in metropolitan counties. ([p. 323](https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Documents/Oregon%20Prosperity%20Council%20Report_June%202026.pdf#page=323))
- Close to 75 percent of Oregon wood products are sold outside the state, bringing external revenue rather than recirculating local spending. ([p. 325](https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Documents/Oregon%20Prosperity%20Council%20Report_June%202026.pdf#page=325))
- 72 percent of Oregon's 2023 timber harvest came from private lands, despite private lands representing less than 50 percent of the forest base. ([p. 324](https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Documents/Oregon%20Prosperity%20Council%20Report_June%202026.pdf#page=324))
- Oregon hosts 18 of the nation's 77 engineered-wood manufacturing plants. ([p. 328](https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Documents/Oregon%20Prosperity%20Council%20Report_June%202026.pdf#page=328))
- The Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds (1997-2021) resulted in roughly 20,000 projects, half of which were privately funded, to improve aquatic habitat. ([p. 327](https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Documents/Oregon%20Prosperity%20Council%20Report_June%202026.pdf#page=327))
- The Private Forest Accord forms the basis for more than 100 changes to Forest Practices Act rules, affecting around 10 million acres of private forestland. ([p. 327](https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Documents/Oregon%20Prosperity%20Council%20Report_June%202026.pdf#page=327))
- In 2023, Oregon voluntarily set aside nearly half of its publicly-owned timberlands as habitat conservation areas to comply with a federally approved habitat conservation plan. ([p. 329](https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Documents/Oregon%20Prosperity%20Council%20Report_June%202026.pdf#page=329))

Amounts: 62,300 jobs · $71,900 · $68,283 · 77 percent · 72 percent · 75 percent · 15,000 board feet · 2,200 square feet · Dates/FTE: April 2026 · 1997 · 2021 · 2014 · Programs: Private Forest Accord · Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds · Forest Practices Act · Oregon Coast Coho Conservation Plan · Habitat Conservation Plan · Corporate Activities Tax · Parties: Oregon Forest Industries Council · Oregon Business and Industry · Governor Kotek · Oregon Employment Department

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> **Source:** PDF [pp. 323-331](https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Documents/Oregon%20Prosperity%20Council%20Report_June%202026.pdf#page=323) · raw: [323](../../.extracted/pages/page-0323.txt) · [324](../../.extracted/pages/page-0324.txt) · [325](../../.extracted/pages/page-0325.txt) · [326](../../.extracted/pages/page-0326.txt) · [327](../../.extracted/pages/page-0327.txt) · [328](../../.extracted/pages/page-0328.txt) · [329](../../.extracted/pages/page-0329.txt) · [330](../../.extracted/pages/page-0330.txt) · [331](../../.extracted/pages/page-0331.txt)

Breadcrumb: Appendix E: Submissions & Feedback > 35. Oregon Forest Industries Council

---
Oregon Forest Industries Council
Memorandum to the Oregon Prosperity Council
Date: April 2026
Re: Strengthening Oregon’s Forest Products Sector as a Foundation for Statewide
Prosperity
Executive Summary
Oregon’s forest products sector is one of the state’s oldest and most important traded
sectors and one of the few industries that simultaneously advances statewide prosperity,
rural economic stability and Oregon’s environmental objectives. Oregon’s 10 million acres
of working forestland (roughly a third of the total forestland in the state) proudly make
Oregon the nation’s top producer of lumber, plywood and engineered wood products like
mass timber - roughly three quarters of the state’s timber harvest comes from private and
tribal forestland. The forest sector also supports more than 62,000 direct jobs with a higher
than state average annual wage - a large percentage of which are in rural communities and
1
do not require a post-secondary degree.
The forest sector plays a unique role in Oregon’s economy. As a traded sector, the forest
products industry does not simply circulate money already inside the state. Close to 75
percent of the products made here are sold outside Oregon, injecting new dollars into local
communities and supporting jobs in trucking, equipment repair, professional services,
distribution and manufacturing. That traded-sector role is especially important in rural
counties, where forest-sector jobs make up six percent of all employment, compared with
two percent in metropolitan counties, and in some counties the sector accounts for more
2
than one in ten jobs.
The Oregon Prosperity Council recommendations should therefore treat the forest sector
not as a narrow special interest, but as a test case for whether Oregon is serious about
competitiveness. Oregon Business and Industry’s (OBI’s) recommendations correctly
emphasize predictable regulation, manageable cost structures and a more durable
business climate. OFIC agrees with that framework and urges the Council to apply it with
specificity to Oregon’s forest sector, where policy choices are made over decades, capital
3
is mobile and market share can be lost slowly but permanently.
1
OFRI, Oregon Forest Facts 2025-26, pp. 3, 5, 7, 14.
2
Oregon Employment Department, “Oregon’s Forest Sector Employment Totaled 62,300 in 2023”
(2024); OFRI, Oregon Forest Facts 2025-26, p. 8.
3
OBI, Recommendations to Governor Kotek’s Prosperity Council (Apr. 2, 2026).

Recommendations for the Prosperity Council
1. Treat the forest products sector as a priority traded sector in the Council’s
final report.
The Council should expressly recognize the forest products sector as a core traded sector
that supports statewide prosperity and rural economic and environmental resilience. That
recognition should not be symbolic. It should guide tax, permitting, workforce, land use and
housing recommendations toward preserving in-state production and manufacturing
capacity.
Support:
• Oregon remains the nation’s top producer of softwood lumber, plywood and
4
engineered wood products like mass timber.
• Even though privately-owned forestland makes up less than 50 percent of the
forested land base, 72 percent of Oregon’s 2023 timber harvest came from
5
private lands. Private landowners, family forest landowners, tribal forests
and private-sector manufacturers play an outsized role in maintaining the
strength of the sector. Without their sustained participation, mills,
contractors, loggers and haulers that make up Oregon’s forest economy
6
cannot function at scale.
Figure 1. Private lands supply a much larger share of Oregon timber harvest than their share of the forest base.
4
OFRI, Oregon Forest Facts 2025-26, p. 8.
5
Id. at p. 3.
6
Id. at p. 5.
2

• Oregon’s forest sector directly employed 62,300 people in 2023 with an
average annual wage of $71,900, compared with an average of about $68,283
for Oregon employment overall. In some rural counties forest sector wages
7
paid as much as 77 percent more than the all-jobs average.
• Prosperity in rural Oregon depends less on headline job counts than on the
availability of year-round, stable employment that produces a viable living
wage and benefits. These jobs cannot be replaced by seasonal, lower paying
leisure, tourism and hospitality jobs that often do not provide the salary and
benefits necessary to support a family.
8
Figure 2. Forest-sector wages exceed the statewide average and are well above leisure-and-hospitality
9
earnings .
• Close to 75 percent of Oregon wood products are sold outside the state,
bringing external revenue into the state economy rather than merely
10
recirculating local spending.
• Forest-sector employment includes far more than logging and sawmilling. It
also includes trucking, reforestation, equipment maintenance, engineering,
hydrology, management, dock work and wood products distribution. These
are durable jobs that stabilize school district and local government tax bases
11
and induce small business demand in communities.
7
Oregon Employment Department (2024); Oregon Blue Book, “Oregon’s Economy: Wages.”
8
OFRI, Oregon Forest Facts 2025-26, p. 15.
9
FRED series SMU41000007000000003A (BLS source); annualized at 2,080 hours.
10
OFRI, “Oregon’s forest economy.”
11
Oregon Employment Department (2024).
3

2. Endorse the OBI framework on cost structure and predictability and apply it
specifically to forestry.
OFIC agrees with OBI’s call for a more predictable regulatory environment, modernization
of the Corporate Activities Tax (CAT) and a stronger competitiveness lens in policymaking.
In forestry, the Council should recommend that major new rules be evaluated for
technological and economic feasibility, interaction with existing programs and cumulative
cost on a traded-sector supply chain.
Support:
• Rising production costs for a commodity producer such as a lumber mill,
which must compete in national and international markets, often cannot
pass increased local production costs onto the end consumer. When
production costs in Oregon rise faster than in competing jurisdictions, the
result is not simply thinner margins. Over time, such increases are likely to
result in reduced market share, deferred capital investment and the gradual
12
relocation of processing capacity out of state.
• Cheaper wood products from places with far less stringent environmental
protections are regularly taking market share away from Oregon landowners
and manufacturers. Continual increases to the cost of operating in Oregon
and regulatory and cost uncertainty is resulting in the certain replacement of
Oregon products by products from less desirable regions – resulting in a net
environmental cost and loss of Oregon jobs.
• Forest investments are made on long time horizons. Timberlands are
managed over decades, and mills require large, fixed capital outlays that are
13
difficult to redeploy once committed.
• A single Oregon log may move through multiple taxable transactions before
becoming lumber, plywood, engineered wood or a secondary product sold
out of state. Each step can add cost before the product ever reaches a final
14
market.
• Therefore, the cumulative effect of policy choices is often more important
than any single rule. The interaction and cumulative effect of taxes, labor
costs, permitting risk, environmental rules, carbon policy and emerging land
use constraints aimed at manufacturers together make Oregon
15
incrementally less attractive than competing jurisdictions.
12
OFRI, “Oregon’s forest economy”; OBI (Apr. 2, 2026).
13
OBI, “OBI Shares Recommendations with Prosperity Council” (Apr. 2, 2026)
14
OBI (Apr. 2, 2026).
15
OBI (Apr. 2, 2026); OFIC policy analysis.
4

• The result is older facilities are not modernized, and new lines are built
elsewhere. Each decision to divert capital and invest elsewhere is a loss to
16
the state’s overall vitality and competitiveness.
3. Recommend full and durable implementation of the Private Forest Accord.
The Council should emphasize that the PFA should be respected as a negotiated, science-
based framework that builds on a long history of cooperative salmon and watershed
restoration. Oregon should not signal to investors that even major settlements of this kind
merely invite the next round of regulatory layering before the ink is dry.
Support:
• The Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds, launched in 1997, created a
statewide framework for restoring salmon populations, water quality, habitat
and watershed health through cooperation among agencies, private citizens,
watershed councils and other organizations.
• Between 1997 and 2021, that voluntary program resulted in roughly 20,000
17
projects – half of which were privately funded - to improve aquatic habitat.
• Since 2014, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s Water Quality
Index Report has confirmed that forestland provides the highest quality water
18
of any land use in the state.
• The PFA is the most recent iteration of a historical cooperative water quality
strategy that has produced measurable gains over decades. It has formed
the basis for more than 100 changes to Forest Practices Act rules, affecting
around 10 million acres of private forestland. ODF itself has acknowledged
19
just how monumental this update has been.
• The 2024 annual report on the Oregon Coast Coho Conservation Plan
reported an estimated 161,293 wild spawners, or 125 percent of the prior 34-
20
year average.
• This successful policy framework should be reinforced, not treated as a floor
for perpetual ratcheting. The prosperity problem in Oregon is not that the
sector lacks environmental obligations. It is that businesses increasingly
doubt whether agreed upon, science-based regulatory frameworks will
21
actually be respected and afforded the durability they deserve.
16
OBI (Apr. 2, 2026); commodity-market effects stated as economic analysis.
17
Oregon Watershed Restoration Inventory, 2022
18
Oregon Water Quality Index Data Summary, March 2026
19
Oregon Department of Forestry, “Private Forest Accord”; ODF, “Private Forest Accord Updates:
Habitat Conservation Plan.”
20
ODFW, Oregon Coast Coho Conservation Plan 2024 Annual Report.
21
OBI (Apr. 2, 2026).
5

4. Align housing and industrial policy by supporting wood and mass timber.
The Council should connect Oregon’s housing agenda to Oregon’s forest economy. That
means supporting mass timber manufacture and utilization, encouraging public
procurement of wood for appropriate projects and recognizing that higher delivered wood
costs reduce the number of projects that pencil and therefore reduce housing starts and
supply. Building on the strength of a longstanding traded sector to address a statewide
22
need is the type of win-win Oregon strategy we need.
Support:
• The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reports that the average
new single-family home uses roughly 15,000 board feet of framing lumber,
more than 2,200 square feet of softwood plywood, and more than 6,800
23
square feet of oriented strand board (OSB). This underscores the point that
wood is not a marginal input to a house; it is a foundational one. When the
delivered cost of those inputs rises materially, the economics of projects
change. More expensive inputs contribute to higher overall building costs,
lower affordability and constrained supply relative to demand – further
exacerbating the problem.
• At the same time, Oregon has become a leader in advanced engineered
wood. OFRI reports that 18 of the nation’s 77 engineered-wood
manufacturing plants are in Oregon, and state agencies have been promoting
24
mass timber and modular housing as part of the state’s housing strategy.
• Public procurement that prioritizes mass timber construction where
appropriate can help undergird Oregon manufacturing, attract and expand
local design and construction expertise and create more demand for high
value Oregon wood products.
5. Protect existing industrial uses in land use policy.
The Council should recommend land use modernization that preserves industrial lands and
explicitly protects longstanding lawful industrial uses from being penalized when non-
industrial uses are later sited nearby.
Support:
• A new land use problem is emerging in industrial communities: local
planning decisions sometimes place new residential or “vulnerable uses”
near long-established industrial operations, after which those existing
operations face new scrutiny over truck traffic, air discharges, noise,
25
emergency planning or ordinary industrial activity. This new source of
22
Oregon DLCD, “Mass Timber and Modular Housing Resources.”
23
NAHB
24
OFRI, Oregon Forest Facts 2025-26, p. 8.
25
OBI (Apr. 2, 2026).
6

uncertainty acts as a disincentive against the capital investment required to
maintain competitiveness in national and international markets.
• Longstanding lawful industrial uses should not be penalized because uses
that some believe are incompatible are subsequently sited nearby.
• Oregon can both create more housing and preserve industrial employment,
but it cannot do so by curtailing ordinary industrial activity via regulation
26
every time the planning map changes around an existing facility.
6. Prioritize the active management of state forests
The Council should direct the state to prioritize leveraging its revenue-generating forest
assets through active forest management on acres outside of habitat conservation area
set-asides.
Support:
• Oregon’s management of its state forest land base has historically been
guided by three principles: (1) generation of revenue through timber harvest;
(2) protection of critical habitat; and (3) promotion of recreational
opportunities.
• In 2023, the state voluntarily set aside nearly half of its publicly-owned
timberlands as habitat for various threatened and endangered species in the
pursuit of a federally approved habitat conservation plan and incidental take
permit. Notably, these “habitat conservation areas” (HCAs) are mostly off-
limits to timber harvest, though they are still available for public recreation
and other non-harvest uses.
• Sustainable timber harvest should be prioritized on those acres that fall
outside of the HCAs, and no further constraints should be placed on active
management of state forests in the name of habitat preservation or
ecosystem services.
• Annual harvest targets should be clearly articulated and any shortfalls in
anticipated harvest should be rolled forward to future years. This would
provide greater predictability and certainty for purchasers of state timber and
local governments who depend on the revenue from them.
• Prioritizing harvest on non-HCA acres not only supports the timber industry
and local communities that receive a share of the revenue from state timber
sales, but it also furthers the state’s climate goals by maximizing the carbon
sequestration potential of these forests through a continuous cycle of timber
harvest, conversion of harvested timber into long-lived wood products, and
renewal.
26
OFIC planning analysis.
7

7. Support active management on federal forests and maintain the
manufacturing base needed to perform that work.
The Council should view federal forest restoration and Oregon manufacturing capacity as
interdependent. Without mills and associated infrastructure, large-scale restoration is
more expensive and less feasible.
Support:
• Federal harvest in Oregon fell sharply in the late 1980s and early 1990s with
changes in federal forest management, and because of that federal policy,
many rural communities lost both jobs and associated public revenues.
Local jobs and revenues are not all that was lost because of this misguided
policy, however. Oregon State University notes that passive management of
federal forestland has contributed to declining forest health and decreased
fire resiliency for many federal lands, especially in the drier forests east of the
27
Cascades.
• If policymakers intend on addressing the wildfire crisis in the West with fuels
reduction and prescribed fire, it cannot be done without local loggers,
truckers, contractors and sawmills to remove and process wood fiber. When
manufacturing capacity erodes because supply is unreliable or policy risk is
too high, the state loses the very industrial infrastructure needed to make
28
federal forest restoration financially and logistically feasible.
8. Require carbon policy to evaluate substitution effects, leakage and
disturbance risk.
Any recommendation on climate or carbon should account for the full lifecycle benefits of
wood products and the risk of offshoring production to other states or countries. Oregon
should not pursue carbon maximalism that weakens one of its most sustainable natural-
resource sectors while increasing dependence on more emissions-intensive substitutes.
Support:
• Working forests and a robust forest products industry are key to any
domestic or international climate change mitigation strategy.
• Forests are a natural climate solution, as actively growing forests pull carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere and store carbon in woody vegetation. By
sustainably managing forests, these benefits can be enhanced above and
beyond the natural forest carbon cycle. Carbon sequestered by harvested
trees from working forests is stored in wood products and used as a carbon-
neutral energy source. Not only are primary wood products, wood
27
OFRI, “Oregon’s forest economy.”
28
OFRI, “Oregon’s forest economy.”
8

manufacturing byproducts and biomass-derived energy carbon neutral, but
they provide a substitutionary benefit over the use of fossil fuel-intensive
29
alternatives.
• This cycle of carbon capture and storage from working forests can be
indefinitely and sustainably maintained through a continuous process of
adaptive reforestation (replanting and regrowth) and harvest, and is
dependent on a thriving, local, integrated forest products industry. Growth of
the forest products industry is essential for the social and economic
wellbeing of Oregon communities and is key in maximizing the climate
benefits of our state’s forests.
• Policies that suppress active management on either state or private forests
may increase stored carbon on paper while increasing the risk that some of
30
that carbon is later lost through disturbance.
Conclusion
The forest products sector occupies a unique place in Oregon. It is deeply rooted in rural
and suburban communities, it is exposed to national and international competition, and it
is able to contribute meaningfully to the advancement of Oregon’s housing development
and climate goals. Few industries touch this many aspects of state policy. For that reason,
the Prosperity Council should not treat forest policy as separate from a statewide
31
prosperity policy. In Oregon, they are intertwined.
If the Council wants to recommend policies that materially improve Oregon’s economic
trajectory, it should include clear, sector-specific recommendations that reduce avoidable
costs, improve predictability, protect existing industrial capacity and respect successful
cooperative conservation frameworks. Doing so would not be a favor to one industry. It
would be a concrete step toward a more prosperous and balanced Oregon economy across
32
the entirety of the state.
29
OFRI, Oregon Forest Facts & Figures, carbon section.
30
OFRI carbon materials; disturbance-risk discussion stated as policy analysis.
31
OFRI materials; OBI recommendations.
32
OBI (Apr. 2, 2026); OFIC policy analysis.
9

---

Parent: [Appendix E: Submissions & Feedback](./INDEX.md) · PDF: [pp. 323-331](https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Documents/Oregon%20Prosperity%20Council%20Report_June%202026.pdf#page=323)