KUFM / KGPR
T. M. Power
The Natural Resource Strategy for Economic
Development
Before we elect a
new governor next November, we Montanans ought to evaluate the various
candidates’ proposals for “fixing” the
Don’t believe it. There are three substantial flaws in this argument.
First of all, like
it or not, it just is not the case any more that our economic prosperity
depends on natural resources. Consider these facts. Between 1990 and 2000, both
payrolls adjusted for inflation and the number of jobs in
Of course the fact
that Montanans found jobs in other industries while losing them in natural
resources may not tell the whole story. That’s because many of the natural
resource jobs we lost paid well, while many of the jobs we gained in trade and
services paid badly. But while it’s tempting to conclude that this shift from
good to bad jobs was responsible for declining pay in
With only a couple
of interruptions, inflation-adjusted pay in
During that period we lost almost 6,500 natural resource jobs[1] while gaining more than 140,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy. Had natural resource industries kept their 1978 share of employment over this period, we would, instead, have gained 8,200 natural resource jobs. But surprisingly, even if that miracle had happened, average pay per job would still have fallen by $4,600 per year, 92 percent of the amount it actually declined.
The reason for this was that quite aside from the shift in jobs among industries, within many industries (including the natural resources industries themselves) pay was falling. The problem was not the changes in our job mix but an overall decline in pay.
None of this is meant to suggest that for particular communities and areas, natural resources are not important. They certainly are. Nor is it to say that there is something wrong with natural resource industries. The point rather is that when we consider the state’s economy as a whole and when we examine its recent history, we have to recognize that natural resources are no longer the engine driving the economy’s growth, and that in the number of jobs that the natural resource industries now provide is no longer large enough to have much of an impact on pay levels for the typical Montana worker.
However, even if
natural resources do not play the role they once did, Montanans might still
want to take a long, hard look at our environmental policies to see if there is
evidence that those policies are stifling natural resource development. But the
evidence suggests that it was not environmental policies, but national and
international market forces that were the real cause of the problem. During the 1990s, natural resource industries
throughout the nation experienced the same kind of declines that they did in
It is somewhat
startling to find timber and mining interests labeling environmental concerns
“special interests.” Most Montanans have at some point questioned friends and
neighbors about why they stay in
When Montanans work to protect and enhance environmental quality – through a land trust or a watershed group or a wildlife federation or a wilderness society or some other advocacy organization, they are working for the public interest, on behalf of the great majority of their fellow Montanans. It follows that politicians who denigrate these efforts do not understand the public interest, are not in a position to protect it, and certainly do not deserve your vote.