The coming year will be a real test for our industry. 
A new administration and many new congressional members will bring
us new challenges and new ideas we have not faced before. 
As always I believe the PPRC is in a prefect position, because we 
are one of the few organizations who go to 
Capitol Hill truly “SEEKING A BALANCE” between our jobs, 
the environment and the communities we raise our families in. This
is why we have been so well received in Washington, DC. With the 
continued and hopefully increased support from the many local 
unions and companies who have backed us we will continue to work 
on the issues that will help secure our jobs and our industry well 
into the future. Let me briefly mention some of those issues and 
discuss the direction we are headed
CLIMATE CHANGE - our industry (wood products) we must, 
in any legislation, receive credit for the positive environmental 
impacts we have, including carbon sequestration from our forest to the 
use
of bio-energy in our manufacturing plants. I believe we are one of the 
greenest of all 
industries. What other industry is renewable, recyclable, and sustainable?
ENERGY - cost to our industry is tremendous. We must reduce energy 
cost by the use of our own natural reserves and increased use of 
bio-mass as an energy source. Many mills with reasonable upgrades 
can use wood chips for paper products and extract energy sources 
without sacrificing any jobs.
INTERNATIONAL TRADE - must be a fair and level playing field. 
Imports from foreign countries must be held to our 
(US) environmental standards. All illegal trade must be stopped.
FOREST HEALTH / FIBER SUPPLY - our nations forest are in serious 
need of proper management. Proper management can return our forest
to a healthy condition while using the woody debris for bio-mass 
to produce green energy and reducing catastrophic wildfires at 
the same time.        

Southern Pine Region
 

During this time of economic unrest, mills are suffering, not only in 
the Southern Pine Region, but nationally. The IP/LA. mill, Bastrop, 
is taking 7 weeks downtime. Employees will be laid off during 
Thanksgiving and Christmas. 
	Smurfit-Stone, Hodge, will lay off 80 workers during a temporary 
	shutdown of its No. 5 machine. Earlier this year, in unrelated 
	action, Smurfit-Stone offered volunteer buyouts to Hodge employees 
	age 55 and older, to reduce work force by 70 jobs. 
	Pan American Investors, New York, were seeking investors to 
	restart the Tembec paper mill in St. Francisville, LA.  Since 
	the Wall Street meltdown, the talk seems to have
quieted. 
	Randy Bowen and Dave Cothren will be recruiting at the IP, 
	Valliant, Oklahoma (formerly Weyerhaeuser) mill on December 11. 
	Hope we are successful since we don't have any PPRC membership 
	from Oklahoma.


Respectfully submitted by,
Randy Bowen - PPRC Southern Pine Region Director