Guitar Frets: Environmental Enforcement Leaves Musicians in

[gremlin]

full story is at the link. looks like things are going to heat up.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 23268.html

Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson's chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company's manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. "The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier," he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.

It isn't the first time that agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service have come knocking at the storied maker of such iconic instruments as the Les Paul electric guitar, the J-160E acoustic-electric John Lennon played, and essential jazz-boxes such as Charlie Christian's ES-150. In 2009 the Feds seized several guitars and pallets of wood from a Gibson factory, and both sides have been wrangling over the goods in a case with the delightful name "United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms."

The question in the first raid seemed to be whether Gibson had been buying illegally harvested hardwoods from protected forests, such as the Madagascar ebony that makes for such lovely fretboards. And if Gibson did knowingly import illegally harvested ebony from Madagascar, that wouldn't be a negligible offense. Peter Lowry, ebony and rosewood expert at the Missouri Botanical Garden, calls the Madagascar wood trade the "equivalent of Africa's blood diamonds." But with the new raid, the government seems to be questioning whether some wood sourced from India met every regulatory jot and tittle

[Geo-George]

What a bunch of B.S.
The Pres stated he wouldn't enforce immigration laws, but they are going to "pick" (pun intended) on Gibson's wood imports? Damn feds and their regs.
I play a beautiful 1977 Gibson, Sunburst ES-335 TD with a Bigsby tail, and I really don't give a squat where the wood came from.

[Reno badboy]

More of our great govt. in action picking on little guys!!! One of these days........!!! They got to have their nose in everyone's business but their own, which they can't handle eigther!!!! IDIOT'S!!!!!!