About that U.S. lumber coalition ...

Well, well, well ... isn't this special? Apparently, the secretive "U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports" has some pretty big backers:

Members of U.S. lumber lobby exposed

The U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports has waged decades of trade war against Canada, but its membership has always been a closely held secret.

Until now, that is.

Wednesday, the coalition's Washington-based law firm inadvertently e-mailed a report of its recent public relations activities to journalists. And the intended recipients of the message are many of the key members of the coalition, including lumber companies, land brokers, as well as mergers-and-acquisition experts.

“Everyone on that list is a member,” acknowledged Harry Clark, a lawyer at Dewey Ballantine in Washington. “But that's not the membership list. It's just part of the membership.”

The list includes several large, mostly public, companies, long suspected to be active in the coalition. These include International Paper Co. of Stamford, Conn., Sierra Pacific Industries of Redding, Calif., Temple-Inland Inc. of Austin, Tex., Potlatch Corp. of Spokane, Ore., and Plum Creek Timber Co. Inc. of Seattle, Wash.

And it's not just lumber companies:

The list also demonstrates that its membership extends beyond lumber mills. The e-mail recipients include Sullivan Forestry Consultants Inc., a Georgia-based timberland realtor, and Evercore Partners Inc., a mergers and acquisitions company.

Suddenly, things are a lot clearer, aren't they?