Two titans of the timber industry, one a Chinese billionaire and the other a historic California family, have rooted themselves as some of the largest private landowners in the U.S. This was unearthed in The Land Report's latest dispatch that shines a light on the country's top 100 private landowners.
The Emmerson Family, hailing from California and the owners of Sierra Pacific Industries, are now the biggest private landholders in America following their acquisition of a family-owned company in Douglas County, as reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB). This 2021 deal gave them control over an additional 175,000 acres, stacking up to a grand total of 2.4 million acres spanning across Oregon, California, and Washington.
On the heels of the Emmerson clan is Tianqiao Chen, carving out his own empire in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. According to findings published on Jan. 9, Chen, via his investment company, scooped up nearly 200,000 acres in Oregon's Klamath and Deschutes counties almost a decade ago – making him the second largest foreign owner of U.S. soil. The top spot is held by the Irving family of Canada.
A snag hit Chen's growing forest dominion as U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, an Oregon Republican, publicly sounded alarms over the billionaire's purported ties to the Chinese Communist Party. “I’m deeply concerned that a member of the Chinese Communist Party owns tens of thousands of forestland acres — one of our most precious and finite resources — in my district.” Chavez-DeRemer decried in a press release.
In response to the stirring doubts, Jason Reindorp, communication director for Chen's firm, defended their transparency to the Capital Chronicle. "They determined there were absolutely no national security concerns," Reindorp stated, highlighting that the U.S. Treasury Department's Committee on Foreign Investment had been consulted prior to the land purchase. This comes as Congress members continue to push for legislation curtailing foreign ownership of American land, particularly from China.
