Scott Dane, executive director of Associated Contract Loggers & Truckers of Minnesota, spoke on the third night of the Republican National Convention on Aug. 26, 2020.
Transcript
I’m Scott Dane. I represent loggers and truckers in Minnesota, but I also represent a way of life. Logging has been a part of the great American story from the beginning. In fact, if you go to the Capitol rotunda and look up, you can see loggers on one of the panels, New England settlers carving out a new world from the wilderness. But logging is the most dangerous job in the country, but we embrace that risk because we know America was built by strong people, building things together. America needs us to keep building and we can’t wait to be a part of it. But the last time Joe Biden was in the White House, Minnesota lost nearly half of its mills, thousands of jobs and experienced nearly a decade of decline. It was a similar story in other parts of the country. The administration just didn’t seem to care.
In 47 years in Washington, Joe Biden, hasn’t done anything for the timber industry. When plants closed in Duluth, Sartell, Cook and Bemidji, they were just numbers on a paper to the Obama Biden administration. To me, they were people in jobs and families. Under Obama-Biden, radical environmentalist, who were allowed to kill the forests, wildfire after wildfire shows the consequences. Managed forests, the kind of my people work in, are healthy forests. Under President Trump, we’ve seen a new recognition of the value of forest management in reducing wildfires. We’ve seen new support for our way of life, where a strong back and a strong work ethic can build a strong middle class. We want to build families where we were raised and stand by communities that stood by us. We want that way of life available for the next generation, and we want our forests there too. President Trump, thank you for helping us do just that.
