In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was great concern that America would run out of trees. Predictions of a timber famine were common among forestry "experts" of the time, especially from Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the Forest Service

Pinchot and others correctly noted that timber harvests were far exceeding reforestation, but incorrectly concluded that this was an inherent flaw of private management. The timber famine did not come to pass for two reasons. First, private-sector entrepreneurs anticipated increased timber scarcity and responded with a wide range of innovations. Second, as prices went up, people began to economize on the use of wood.

Entrepreneurship is a continual search to preserve or create value in innovative ways. It is what we can expect when property rights are sufficiently secure to justify the risks always involved when trying something new. Experimenting with more productive and ecologically sensitive timber management is an especially risky venture for the time frame is long.

Without relatively secure property rights, people think for the near term. Timber famines and short-term management are likely. But, perversely, the Environmental Protection Agency is penalizing entrepreneurs by harassing innovative timber owners. This has the effect of abridging their rights.

EPA harassment has recently focused on Simpson Investment Company, a leader in high-yield forestry. I have known people at Simpson for nearly 20 years and have followed their forestry innovations with interest and admiration. In 1988, Simpson began a risky experiment in growing eucalyptus trees on a "fiber farm" near Corning, Calif. Buying 10,000 acres of land in orchard and pasture, Simpson experimented with eucalyptus trees at the edge of that tree's possible range. The chance of failure was high but the potential rewards seemed to merit the risk. Since eucalyptus grows nearly five times faster than native trees, about 500 cubic feet per acre per year, a given plot of land can yield much more fiber for wood pulp than a comparable section of natural forest.

There are many benefits to Simpson's experiment. For example, water is conserved by using 7,000 miles of drip irrigation, an approach developed in the deserts of Israel. By planting on land that had been in agriculture for decades, Simpson preserved natural forests.

A third benefit is noted by Resources for the Future (RFF), an organization widely respected as the largest and oldest of the natural resource-environmental think tanks. Roger Sedjo, a University of Washington Ph.D., is director of their Forest Economy and Policy Program. His recent paper, "The Global Environmental Effects of Local Logging Cutbacks," places the environmental consequences of entrepreneurial efforts such as Simpson's Tehama Tree Farm into its larger context.

Sedjo notes that international trade in forest products is well-developed. Logging restrictions in one place produce increased logging elsewhere. This is important because logging's environmental impact varies greatly from place to place. Logging old growth or forests with biodiversity or habitat values has more serious environmental effects than logging plantation forests. Sedjo says, ". . . logging in plantation forests is likely to be the most environmentally benign (alternative), especially when these forests are established on former agricultural lands," exactly the case with Simpson's eucalyptus farms. By increasing the production of plantation forests, Simpson relieves pressures on the natural forests elsewhere.

But the EPA chose to ignore Simpson's solid environmental record and the obvious benefits of its California facility. On Jan. 25 and again on Feb. 3, EPA bureaucrats invaded Simpson's premises. Without explanation, they seized privileged documents and threatened to halt the farm's activities. They claimed possible threats to fairy shrimp, a species listed as endangered last November.

Though Simpson officials tried to arrange a meeting to determine the cause of EPA's concerns, their efforts were rebuffed. On Feb. 28, Simpson received an administrative order from EPA that may require the company to cease operations at Tehama. Without a single meeting, EPA snuffed a pioneering effort in innovative forestry.

This is a tragic, but unsurprising example of the corruption of purpose associated with government bureaucracies. It demonstrates the pathology identified by Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer as "tunnel vision"; bureaucrats single-mindedly carrying the mission of their organization to the point where it does more harm than good.

EPA's treatment of Simpson discourages ambitious environmental experiments. Their behavior makes a mockery of EPA's very reason for existence, environmental protection. When we examine this case from a long-term environmental perspective, we understand why the term "bureaucracy" carries such heavy negative baggage.

EPA's response to Simpson's experiment gives huge negative incentives to exactly the type of entrepreneurs upon whom our future depends. EPA's actions demonstrate the huge environmental, ethical and economic consequences of giving vast power to government bureaucracies. It would be ironic indeed if the timber famine predicted by the progressives a century ago would finally come to pass due to the arrogance and aggrandizement of their bureaucratic descendants.