IT'S NICE to hear that one industry in Alabama might benefit from the anti-global warming legislation pending in Congress.

An Auburn University forestry expert said last week the state's timber industry could get a shot in the arm from the "cap-and-trade" bill, which would effectively tax carbon emissions and promote so-called green energy. Larry Teeter told the state Forestry Study Committee that "bioenergy might be the quickest cure for elements of the forest-products industry."

President Obama and his allies in the environmental movement like renewable energy sources like wood pellets and other forest products. They don't like the state's primary en ergy source — coal — and they mean to slowly tax coal-fired power plants out of existence.