The new tax treatment should make Texas timber producers more competitive with those in other timber states and encourage replanting of Texas forests. The result should encourage reinvestment in timber jobs. The timber industry has long been a mainstay in East Texas and its influence has grown in recent years. Forty East Texas counties produce significant amounts of timber, according to the Texas Forest Service. Texas is the nation's 10th biggest timber producer.
Housing is where much Texas wood ends up.
Softwood, mostly Southern yellow pine, is Texas' primary wood product. As environmental concerns grew over the fate of the spotted owl in Northwest forests, Xu said, more production shifted to the loblolly pine forests of the South. As prices have increased, timber has become a more profitable investment, Xu said. Oregon, Washington and California have remained the top producers of timber throughout the decade, but only now are their production numbers returning to levels posted in earlier years. Production in southern states, by contrast, has increased in the 1990s.