Legislative Log

The Hardwood Federation: Planning for 2021

by DANA COLE, Executive Director Hardwood Federation

As our deadline for submission approaches, the 2020 election is less than one month away. Just when we think nothing else can surprise us, the year takes another unexpected twist and throws everything we think we knew out the window.

Regardless of who wins the White House and who controls Congress, one thing is certain. The Hardwood Federation team will be ready to engage with new—and returning—elected officials to promote the federal policy priorities of the industry.

As we have since the beginning of our history, we will be scrupulous in our efforts to remain bipartisan and support those members of Congress that support us. We will also strive to work with the White House on issues that we can find common ground and push back when proposed policies have negative consequences for our businesses and employees. We do not represent the hardwood industry as a Republican or a Democrat, we present it as a pillar of the American economy that must be supported at the highest levels of government. This has been our goal since the earliest days of the Federation and will continue to be so in the future.

To prepare for 2021, the Hardwood Federation Board of Directors prepared a letter outlining our policy priorities and shared with both the Biden and Trump campaign committees. While this letter served as a notice to the candidates and their teams, it is also a blueprint for our focus for the balance of 2020 and the coming year.

THE HARDWOOD FEDERATION RECOMMENDS THE FOLLOWING TO INCOMING LEADERS:

• Enter into international agreements that promote free and fair global trade systems and grow the demand for U.S. hardwoods worldwide.

• Maintain and increase USDA funding that supports growing global markets for U.S. hardwood, specifically USDA’s

Foreign Market Development Program and Market

Access Program. • Implement policies that promote and foster strong domestic markets for U.S. hardwood and hardwood products, including new funding to research hardwood products’ environmental and home health benefits.

• Support public and private green building initiatives by extending a sustainable tax credit to building and construction projects, including U.S. wood products, used in these projects.

• Increase government purchases of U.S. structural and finished wood products for federal building and transportation projects, and U.S. military truck beds.

• Recognize the benefits and fully fund the programs that support active forest management on federal and private forest lands, including sustainable timber harvest, restoration, maintenance of forest roads, and fire prevention.

• Finalize the EPA rule recognizing combustion of biomass derived from sustainably managed forests as carbon neutral. Forest-based biomass is renewable and sustainable, and bioenergy produced from biomass helps keep our forestlands as forests and not converted to other non-growing uses.

• Expand and maintain tax policies that support small and medium-sized businesses, including lowering the Estate Tax and improving upon and making permanent the pass-through deduction enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

• Fully fund and enforce the Lacey Act, which was amended in 2008 to combat illegal logging around the globe. The Hardwood

Federation actively supported this amendment and is committed to fair, equitable, and legal trade in forest products.

2020 has been a long and, for many, exhausting year. We are hopeful that 2021 will see brighter and more stable times for the entire U.S. economy, including the hardwood industry. Rest assured, we will be doing all that we can form our perch here in Washington to make sure it is.