Although China is consuming a greater share of the world's lumber, steel and cement, they are not directly receiving these mat'ls from us. Domestic lumber mills have closed recently, but not due to environmentalists. The mills that have closed have done so due to inefficiencies in production. Newer mills have a greater production capacity with fewer employees. New mills are slated to come on over the next few months. One mill closed for a short time due to its inability to log in an economical proximity to the mill. That was, arguably, caused by environmentalists. Lumber did almost double in price this year but it wasn't due to the Chinese. Believe it or not it was due to Iraq. The gov't shipped an incredible amount of lumber and plywood to Iraq in the summer of 2003, thus drying up the domestic supply and driving up the price. China gets most of it lumber as logs from South America. Their laws only allow for the importation of raw mat'ls. We compete with the Chinese for steel and cement on the int'l market since our domestic production cannot keep up with demand.
Iraq may be part of it, but the hurricaine season has had some effect on building materials prices, too.
I live in an area that for decades depended on the timber industries and it has dried up, plants have closed.
A lot of lumber is being shipped to Florida as rebuilding from the very active storm season gets into full swing. It's only a drop in the bucket compared to how much we produce, but I would think that with worldwide supplies already under pressure that sending as much as they are right now to one area would affect the price across the country.