Agri-Pulse
Opinion: Wildfires are showing us that America's forests have a wood problem — Congress has the answer
By Dave Tenny
For the first time in years, Congress has a bipartisan opportunity to address two vexing challenges facing America’s forests: the loss of U.S. pulp and paper mills and the growing risk of wildfire.
The Wildfire Reduction Market Expansion Act of 2026, led by Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., and Reps. Cliff Bentz, R-Ore., and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., would make a targeted fix to the definition of woody biomass in the Renewable Fuel Standard so wood removed from forest thinning, hazardous fuels reduction, the residuals from timber harvest and sawmills, and other lower-value material can qualify as feedstock for advanced biofuels, including sustainable aviation fuel. The bill offers a practical path forward on problems that are building and compounding.
Since 2014, 37 U.S. pulp and paper mills have closed, stranding more than 50 million tons of pulpwood, wood chips and other residual material — the equivalent of nearly 11,000 truckloads of American-grown wood every day, costing the forestry sector over $800 million each year. Making matters worse, nearly a quarter of remaining mills are at significant risk of closure, making new markets for lower-value wood even more urgent.
Meanwhile, wildfire risks are escalating, driven in part by unhealthy, overstocked forests. More than five million acres have already burned across the U.S. this year, well above the ten-year average, and suppression costs have ballooned to nearly $3 billion annually. Smoke is increasingly choking our cities making it unhealthy to be outdoors, and rural forest communities live in fear for their homes, their communities and their lives. Recent devastation in communities like Spokane, Washington, are a harrowing reminder that unless we address the wildfire crisis, the worst is yet to come.
Both problems cause too much wood to accumulate in the wrong places. The most practical challenge facing the forestry sector is that the accelerating loss of mills that use lower-value wood turns that wood from helpful revenue into debilitating cost.
Sawmill residuals, like sawdust, can represent about 20 percent of a log’s value — often the difference between making a profit or a loss. When markets for these residuals disappear, sawmills become vulnerable to curtailment or closure. Similarly, lost markets for lower-value wood thinned from forests raises the costs of sustainable forest management and pressures landowners to reduce investment in their forests or convert them to other uses. Communities suffer and helplessly watch as the source of their livelihood and their sense of safety slowly disappear.
The only solution is new market development that turns stranded wood into a revenue-generating resource. That is what the Wildfire Reduction Market Expansion Act does by fixing a flawed definition of woody biomass in the Renewable Fuel Standard. Wood is already recognized as a renewable fuel source in various federal policies, but the RFS’s unworkable definition prevents most low-value wood from qualifying as an eligible feedstock. As a result, no transportation fuel from woody biomass has been produced under the program. This act would fix that, putting this stranded resource back to work.
To be clear, fixing the definition of woody biomass will not change how the RFS works, including the determination and allocation of Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs. Because woody biomass is best suited for advanced biofuels, like SAF, it does not compete with over-the road fuels, like ethanol produced from annual crops. Fixing the definition simply corrects an arbitrary definitional bias against wood.
No single piece of legislation will reopen closed pulp and paper mills or stop catastrophic wildfires. But any legislation that fosters new investment in sustainable U.S. wood products is a welcome step forward. That is what makes the bipartisan leadership behind the Wildfire Reduction Market Expansion Act so encouraging. Lawmakers in both parties from different regions have found common ground on a simple, impactful idea: woody biomass should benefit our forests, our domestic manufacturing and our rural communities — not burden them.
Working forests do not stop growing when mills close. Forests don’t become less fire prone when hazardous fuels projects are delayed. Communities don’t become less vulnerable when their forests economies decline. The Wildfire Reduction Market Expansion Act offers an opportunity to put American-grown wood back to work, strengthen investment in our forests and sawmills, reduce wildfire risk and bring relief to rural communities.
Congress should seize that opportunity and move this bipartisan solution forward as quickly as possible.
Dave Tenny is the president and CEO of the National Alliance of Forest Owners, whose members own and manage 44 million acres of sustainably managed private working forests across 30 states.