Brant blames environmental regulation in part for the long-term economic depression in logging communities, where unemployment is normally twice the national average. “The spotted owls were the first big thing that kind of wiped out the logging industry. Now there’s other factors. There’s a lot of federal land inside this community, and when it was logged portions of the money would come back to the community in ‘timber receipts.’ Since they’re not logging it, it doesn’t come back.”
