July 2025

A non-profit entity, Golden State Natural Resources, was formed in 2019 by rural communities to address the urgent issue of catastrophic fires from overgrown and under-managed forests, and increase the pace and scale of forest treatments across California. Subsequently, GSNR proposed to develop two fairly large industrial wood pellet facilities at separate locations, requiring a combined 1.9 million tons of feedstock annually, and also a port facility in Stockton, Calif. where the pellets would be shipped overseas to electricity markets.

But in June, after reviewing feedback on its draft environmental impact report, GSNR decided that instead of the two pellet mills, it should develop two wood chip facilities to supply domestic markets such as sustainable aviation fuel or oriented strandboard plants (if somebody would build one).

Not surprisingly, environmental groups have been slapping themselves on the back over their role in causing the dismissal of the pellet mills. Here are some of their comments:

“We spelled out the writing on the wall: GSNR’s biomass boondoggle is not welcome in California communities.” (Natural Resources Defense Council)

“Stopping this dirty, dangerous wood pellet export project is a big victory for communities, the climate and our forests. Our forests shouldn’t be fed to the woodchipper for polluting biomass pellets shipped overseas.” (Center for Biological Diversity)

“We are not surprised to see GSNR pivot away from their colossal pellet scheme that required subsidies at every step of the process and left our communities with more pollution, greater fire risk, and our forests ravaged by increased logging.” (Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center)

But if anyone thinks environmental groups will sit quietly while the new proposal with the two chips mills proceeds merrily along, well here’s another comment from NRDC:

“While they (GSNR) may be donning the new clothes of wood chip production, we are ready to analyze the climate, forest, and community impacts of this newest iteration. Large-scale wood chip production could still irrevocably harm California forests, communities and climate, and could increase air pollution, particularly around sensitive communities.”

Environmentalists have shown they don’t care about proper forest management, because that includes logging, and they apparently prefer to let the forests becomes tinderboxes that subsequently blow up into massive fires that spew carbon into the air. How ironic when you think about it.

Meanwhile, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the Trump Administration is funding a 25% increase in timber sales on national forests, mainly by cutting through the red tape of various environmental programs—the same ones that did in much of the Northwest forest industry during the 1980s and 1990s.

One environmental group responded: “President Trump’s executive orders seek to turn our collective clock back to an era of inequality and freeze it in place for our future. They do not lift up equality and freedom. They return oppression and division.”

I mean, who can argue with that, whatever it means?

One thing is always missing from the environmentalist line of reasoning: the livelihoods of people.