Logging industry urges concrete roadmap after Attorney General—s timber-trespass report recommends two-year pause

Representatives of Vermont—s logging industry told the House Committee on Agriculture, Food, Resiliency, and Forestry that an Attorney General—s Office (AGO) report on timber trespass and theft does not provide the detail or assignments needed to reduce incidents and improve enforcement.

Dana Duran, executive director of Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast, told the committee the industry supported last session—s H.614 and that the AGO produced the required report but did so without a joint stakeholder consensus. "Timber harvesters are not generally in favor of more government regulation," Duran said, "however, we believe then and still today that the legislation ... is an important step to professionalize the industry in Vermont, protect landowners, and ensure that the industry moves forward without a black eye that has festered here in the state of Vermont for decades." He added that stakeholders reviewed a draft but the final report "was at no time reviewed by the group in a joint setting" and that the report—s recommendations largely amount to a two-year pause with no ownership or resource commitments.

Sam Lincoln, owner-operator of Lincoln Farm Timber Harvesting and a former deputy commissioner of the Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, echoed concerns about the report's lack of implementation detail. "The attorney general's office recommended a 2 year period of improved tracking for reports of timber trespass, but it does not say which agency or entity will take the lead on compiling data," Lincoln said. He told the committee there were "no estimates for necessary budgets, staffing, or materials" in the report and urged the legislature to identify concrete roles and resources so the work does not "fade away without action being taken."

Both witnesses urged concrete changes the committee could consider now rather than wait. Duran and Lincoln recommended a standardized trip-ticket or chain-of-custody system for every load leaving a harvest site so mills, contractors and landowners can verify origin and create evidence trails in cases of alleged theft. As Duran put it, "If the mills know that they can't accept a load of wood without a trip ticket, without origination information about where that wood is coming from, who the landowner is, then they're culpable too if they don't accept it." Lincoln described trip tickets as routine paperwork for professional contractors and said that when combined with clear disclosure to landowners they would provide a first step for investigation.

Committee members asked whether trip tickets would be effective when timber crosses state or international borders; witnesses said cross-border shipments do carry paperwork such as bills of lading and that a standard trip-ticket system would still create a useful domestic chain of evidence. Witnesses also suggested the state could consider an operations-notification system so agencies know where harvests are taking place and can perform random inspections, but they acknowledged agency capacity and funding would determine what is practicable.

Several legislators and industry witnesses said the AGO—s comparative review relied primarily on Maine and asked whether other jurisdictions were examined. Duran and Lincoln said stakeholders supplied some comparative material but that the final report did not present a broad set of alternatives from other states. Duran said the report lacked specific statutory questions for further inquiry, budgetary estimates, and direct recommendations from enforcement agencies such as the Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation (FPR) or the Attorney General's Office.

No formal committee action was recorded during the testimony. Chairman Representative James Durfee (Chair) told the room there was no bill on the wall addressing these details and said the committee could choose to draft legislation or pursue other committee work if members wished. Several representatives, including Representative O'Brien and Representative Lipsky, urged the committee to consider drafting concrete, funded measures rather than relying solely on the recommended two-year pause.

The witnesses and several legislators recommended next steps the committee could take: expand stakeholder meetings, collect comparative models from other states, estimate agency staffing and budgets needed to implement tracking and enforcement, and consider statutory requirements such as trip tickets or operations notifications. The witnesses offered to provide more detailed proposals and said the industry would support resourcing agencies if concrete needs were identified.

The committee concluded the witness period and planned a short recess before discussing potential next steps in committee.