The US president recently suggested that domestic lumber production could be significantly increased by opening federal lands to logging. This move, he argued, would reduce US dependence on lumber imports from Canada and Europe. However, like many executive orders and policy directives from Washington, D.C., the gap between political rhetoric and real-world feasibility is substantial. At first glance, tapping into federal timber resources might seem like a logical solution to increase log supply for domestic sawmills. However, the reality is far more complicated. A combination of declining forestry expertise, legal challenges, labor shortages, infrastructure limitations, and lack ...