WESTERMAN INTRODUCES BIPARTISAN LEGISLATION AIMED AT CREATING STRONGER DOMESTIC PULP & PAPER AND WOOD PRODUCTS MARKETS

Today, Congressman Bruce Westerman (AR-04) introduced the bipartisan Strong American Wood (SAW) Act along with Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03) that works to enhance the demand for American-grown wood and support the domestic wood products and pulp and paper products markets by promoting new markets through research and innovation, enacting fair trade, and clearing regulatory hurdles. Congressman Westerman and Congresswoman Gluesenkamp Perez released the following statements:

"American pulp and paper producers and wood products manufacturers are foundational industries across rural America. They are under immense pressure from static market conditions, subsidized foreign goods, and an overly burdensome domestic regulatory environment. The effects are underscored by mill closures, reduced production, job loss, and declining investment. These impacts threaten long-term competition in the marketplace, impact rural livelihoods, and put our forest health at risk - priming our forests as tinderboxes for devastating wildfire," said Congressman Westerman. "The bottom line is that the United States is the world's largest importer of wood and paper products while our mills are closing and our forests are going up in flames. That should not be so, and it's why I introduced the Strong American Wood Act to ease regulatory burdens stifling mill growth, to allow U.S. producers to compete with subsidized foreign producers, and to expand markets for our domestic wood and paper products."

"As wildfire emissions continue to spiral, cheap plastic substitutes for timber and paper products pollute our rivers and bodies and folks who work in the woods and mills are continually scapegoated-it's past time we reevaluate the effectiveness of governmental policies around wood products," said Congresswoman Gluesenkamp Perez. "I'm proud to join Bruce Westerman in introducing this legislation and prouder yet to stand with my community in demanding policies that strengthen our timber markets and affirm our commitment to the people who actually make the things we need."

Background:

• Mills across the country are closing and jobs are disappearing. Industry figures report that more than 50 mills have been closed or curtailed in about 15 months. Since 2021, we have seen 277 sawmill and wood-business closures.
• Foreign imports are undercutting American producers. Even with a robust domestic supply, in the past year, the United States has imported nearly $27.7 billion in pulp and paper products and $19.3 billion in wood products like solid sawn and engineered wood. That's a total of roughly $47 billion a year and more than any other country.
• Low-value timber that needs to be thinned to maintain forest health in many places costs more to cut and haul than the timber is worth. Similarly, poor market conditions for residual material from solid wood products manufacturing not only threaten long-term forest health but ultimately devalue forestland, which creates ripple effects from forest fragmentation to negative impacts on institutional investments and retirement funds.
• Housing backlog data reveals that the United States is over 4 million new homes behind. This statistic is devastating because it means current low demand for lumber which is resulting in mill closures and related infrastructure losses and sets the stage for future supply shortages, which will result in higher costs and more dependence on imports.

To address these issues, theStrong American Wood Act:

• Expands the Carbon Storage Tax Credit to cover biochar and solid stored carbon.
• Lowers barriers to entry for woody biomass to be used in transportation fuels.
• Creates more economic and research opportunities for the commercialization of wood products like woody biomass and biochar.
• Removes tariffs on machinery not produced in the U.S. that is needed to modernize and expand mills.
• Directs tariff and countervailing duty collections from the long-standing U.S./Canada Softwood Lumber Agreement to be used to create revolving loan funds to promote new home building using domestic wood products and to promote U.S. softwood lumber products.
• Removes all Buy American/Build America exemptions for all U.S. government-sourced components that could be purchased as a domestic forest product.
• Establishes a domestic timber procurement requirement across all federal building components.
• Recognizes domestic pulp and paper, hardwood, and softwood supply chains as critical national security materials and directs investigations into whether foreign pulp & paper and wood products imports undermine our national security.
• Preserves American-owned and operated forests by implementing 100% expensing for reforestation expenditures following a natural disaster.
• Requires secondary inspections for wood products and wood-look-alike products to ensure importers disclose full chemical inputs in these products.
• Requires an EPA study to assess the impacts of wildfires on air quality, specifically on PM2.5 levels, and the role pulp & paper and wood products manufacturing plays in reducing wildfires.
• Returns the EPA PM2.5 rule to 12 micrograms per cubic meter allowing for clean air and flexibility for producers.
• Establishes a statutory response to European Union Deforestation Regulations (EUDR) that unfairly targets U.S. wood products produced from the world's most sustainably managed forests. EUDR promotes wood products from virgin forests such as the Amazon rainforests while discriminating against products from managed working forests like those found in the United States and Scandinavia, where forest sustainability practices far outperform those in southern and Central Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa.