The US Forest Service has awarded more than US$80 million in Wood Innovation Grants to spur wood products manufacturing, expand active forest management, and accelerate energy innovation across America’s timber-producing communities.
“The United States is blessed with a bounty of natural resources that we must properly manage to sustain our future economy and boost rural communities. Proper forest use and management lowers our reliance on foreign products and is inherently aligned with President Trump’s America First agenda,” according to Brooke Rollins, US Secretary of Agriculture, who announced the grants late last week. “We’re investing in innovation that ensures a steady, sustainable supply of American wood that not only supports jobs and fuels economies, but also protects the people and communities we serve, as well as the forest resources they depend on to survive and thrive.”
Wood Central understands that the new investment delivers on President Trump’s commitment to “unleashing America’s abundant natural resources by removing unnecessary barriers that have kept forests dangerously overstocked and unhealthy, thereby putting communities at risk from wildfires and other threats.” In addition, it also follows through on Secretary Rollins’s memoranda to the Forest Service to carry out efforts to make forests more productive, including a $200 million timber investment in May, part of a broader strategy to advance economic opportunity and ensure long-term forest resilience through regulatory streamlining and expedited project approvals.
- To learn more about Trump’s strategy for US forests, which includes new sweeping powers to salvage timber from more than 112 million acres of National Forests, click here for Wood Central’s special feature. And to learn more about Secretary Rollins’ directive to eliminate the “roadless rule” – opening up more than 58.5 million acres of forestland for timber production, click here.
