WESTIERN ASSOC[ATI[ON NEWS

Mountain States Lumber & Building Material Dealers Association executive v.p. Geri Jorgensen and president-elect Mary Hartung, Thatcher Building Supply, Thatcher, Az., spent two days visiting dealers and suppliers throughout Arizona. At the fall convention, Hartung will be installed as the association's first female president and its first from Arizona. One of her goals is to get more Arizonans involved in the association.

The recent two-day Products Expo & Building Materials Buying Show drew 357 pre-registered guests and over 500 on-site registrants. The Best Single Booth of Show Award went to McFarland Cascade: Honorable Mention, Continental Divide Fence, Denver, Co.; Best Double Booth.

Colorado Clarklift Inc., Denver; Honorable Mention, Metal Sales Manufacturing Corp., Denver; Best Multiple Booth, Reid & Wright, Inc., Broomfield, Co., and Honorable Mention, All-Coast Forest Products Inc., Englewood, Co.

Next year, the expo returns to the Holiday Inn DIA/J.Q. Hammons Trade Center, Denver. March 13-14.

Lumber Merchants Association has just completed its first annual Buyer's Guide, hoped to be "the most accurate, up-to-the-minute source of products and services available."

Published by the Associates Council, it is designed to help regular members find their way to the various products and services provided by associate members.

LMA members Bob and Donna Rossi, Rossi's Building Materials; Larry McFadden, Fairfax Lumber & Hardware; Dusty, Randy and Kevin Destruel, Mead Clark Lumber, and exec. director Jan Hansen joined 150 other dealers from across the country in Washington, D.C., for the National Lumber & Building Material Dealer Association's recent Legislative Leadership Conference. They called on about 15 legislators, including Sen. Barbara Boxer and Representatives Bill Baker, Gary Condit, Vic Fazio and Frank Riggs, to discuss estate taxes, capital gains, environmental issues and the timber salvage law.

Western Hardwood Association will hold its annual meeting June 1518 in Sunriver, Or. Meeting chairman Bill Redman, North Pacific Lumber Co., has planned an opening night western-themed dinner and reception, golf, auction, Central Oregon flavor salmon bake, whitewater rafting, High Desert Museum and Crater Lake tours, election of officers, Tom Peterson addressing change, and other speakers on alder supply, alder "Harvest and Plant" ecology program, and habitat conservation plans.

Revised Canadian Trade

Canada has instituted a newly revised five-year trade agreement with the U.S., presumably ending 15 years of accusations of unfairly priced softwood exports.

The new deal, which took effect April l, differs significantly from an agreement in principle in February. Under the final agreement, the Canadian government will allocate the export quota among Canadian lumber producers instead of among provinces.

The four top lumber-producing provinces (Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta) agreed to reduce lumber exports to the U.S. by more than 6Vo from the record levels of the past two years. The tentative earlier agreement imposed quotas on softwood lumber from British Columbia and different export-control methods in other provinces.

The pact sets a duty-free quota of 14.7 billion bd. ft. annually on Canadian softwood exports to the U.S. The Canadian government will impose a stiff export tax on shipments exceeding the limit.

The deal is forecast to decrease Canadian softwood exports by up to 1.5 billion bd. ft. a vear. about 9Vo of

Pact Goes lnto Effect

1995 levels. The U.S., in turn, vowed to withhold trade action against Canadian softwood producers for five years.

Concessions ln Rail Merger

After refusing for months to make any changes in the deal, Union Pacific Corp. has consented to modify its planned $3.9 billion merger with Southern Pacific Rail Corp.

To encourage acceptance of the plan, the company has agreed to open up increased rail competition in the Gulf Coast and negotiate with the 1,400-member National Industrial Transportation League, the nation's largest shipper group, which has blasted the plan as monopolistic (see The Merchant, April, p. 23).

Sierra Club For Zero Logging

For the first time in its 100-year history, the Sierra Club is advocating a ban on all commercial logging in National Forests after members voted 2-to-1 to revise the group's timber policy.

About lj%o of the club's national membership voted by mail, with 39,147 supporting the ban.

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