Michigan’s governor declared a state of emergency to assist with Resolute’s Menominee paper mill fire. In other Business news: Nelson Bennett on BC’s pulp and paper crisis; supply chain snarls loosen but problems remain; and a US appeals court rules against Maine law restricting Canadian logging truck drivers. On the market front: US inflation remains high, while the remodelling market softens.
In Forestry/Climate news: WWF says wildlife populations have declined 70%; the spotted owl helps explain Calfornia’s wildfire woes; Europeans are investing in wood amid energy crisis; Finnish forests may become a GHG source; and the ozone hole grew this year despite positive 20-year trend.
Finally, the bloodless battle that almost led to a US/Canada war over lumber — in 1839!
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
By the end of this year, after Paper Excellence indefinitely shuts down its paper mill in Crofton, B.C. will have lost 58% of its paper production capacity and 13% of its pulp mill capacity, according to 
John Ehresmann loves that the cost of shipping an ocean container from Asia to a U.S. port or buying a load of lumber has fallen back to earth. If only that were true for everything he buys — but it’s not. Some parts of his supply chain have clearly improved, said the VP of global supply for Graco Inc, but the complex nature of global supply chains means that companies are still struggling, since the shortage of just one part can hobble them. …A gauge of supply chain health — an index compiled by the New York Federal Reserve — showed stress in the global system eased in September to the lowest level since December 2020. The regional bank’s Global Supply Pressure Index tracks data on shipping costs, delivery times, backlogs and other statistics into a single measure compared to historic norms. The September report marked the fifth straight month of declines in the index./cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/7GR6E7QBRVBVNNJAQMSPZRRZMI.jpg)
A federal appeals court has affirmed a ruling that blocked a Maine law restricting Canadian logging truck driver operations in Maine. The law, passed by the legislature last year, would have forbidden companies and large forest land owners from hiring non-U.S. residents to drive wood products from one location in Maine to another. The legislation was intended to restrict foreign workers, under the federal H-2A visa program, from transporting Maine forest products within the state. Democratic Sen. Troy Jackson argued that the use of foreign labor is an “injustice” that is harming Maine workers. But representatives of the forest products industry sued the state over the law, saying it violates the constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. A district court judge granted a preliminary injunction against the law earlier this year. And an appeals court agreed this week, saying that the law’s restrictions are “likely preempted by federal law.”
The NAHB/Westlake 
Some things in life are hard to understand and explain. …Such as: California’s wildfire woes. In the past five years summer and fall firestorms have killed dozens of people, wiped out homes, businesses and entire communities, torched millions of acres of forestlands, caused billions in property losses, and swept away untold numbers of animals and wildlife. The cause of all this wreckage is easy to pinpoint. It’s simple as two words: spotted owl. In the 1980s California was a superstar timber producer. …From 1988 to 2011, Little writes that the number of wildfires in California “increased by seven large fires annually.” It is no coincidence that 1988 was the year the spotted owl received protection. …The irony here is… according to Dan Porter of the Nature Conservancy, the critical lack of timber industry infrastructure and know-how is “one of the biggest barriers to scaling ecological forest management.”
Growing demand for biomass is putting pressure on industry to deliver sufficient quantities without destroying the environment, the European Commission has warned, pointing to a looming “availability gap” which could be as big as 40-70% by 2050. The bioeconomy – the use of biological resources from land and sea to produce food, materials or energy – is touted in Brussels as one of the solutions to shift society towards a low-carbon, circular economy that is less dependent on fossil fuels. A June report by the EU executive shows Europe is on track to meet the objectives of its bioeconomy strategy, which was first launched in 2012, said Patrick Child, deputy director general at the Commission’s research and innovation department. …However, the report also underlined the need for bio-based industries to respect ecological boundaries – the level at which more biomass production starts harming the environment. …priorities need to be set for how to allocate scare supplies.
Amid a Europe-wide energy crisis, the Czech Republic has had amongst the steepest increase in costs. The July 2022 Household Energy Prices Index found that the country was paying the most for electricity when adjusted to purchasing power parity. …It’s obvious to all that Europe is heading towards a winter of discontent, made all the worse by an expected cold snap across the continent… In anticipation of surging energy bills, greater numbers of Europeans are turning to wood to heat themselves up this winter. But the story is the same across the continent: firewood prices are spiking, warehouses have filled their waiting lists until next year, and concerns have been raised that all this will lead to major environmental problems. Government agencies have expressed concerns about illegal logging, as people are expected to venture into the forests to cut down their own fuel, although some politicians have been more lax than others.
The Antarctic ozone hole last week peaked at a moderately large size for the third straight year — bigger than the size of North America — but experts say it’s still generally shrinking despite recent blips because of high-altitude cold weather. …“The overall trend is improvement. It’s a little worse this year because it was a little colder this year,” said NASA’s Paul Newman. “All the data says that ozone is on the mend.” …Climate change science says that heat-trapping carbon from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas makes Earth’s surface warmer, but the upper stratosphere, above the heat-trapping, gets cooler, Newman said. …Chlorine levels are down almost 30% compared to their peak 20 years ago, Newman said. …University of Colorado’s Brian Toon points to large fires in Australia and injection of massive amounts of water from January’s undersea volcano eruption as new phenomena that could be having impacts.