New Hampshire lawmakers are advancing a bill that would require state-funded construction projects to specify American-sourced lumber — putting New Hampshire lumber producers ahead of Canadian competitors when the state builds. Senate Bill 529, which passed the Senate by voice vote in late January 2026, cleared its House committee public hearing on March 24 and…
The federal government is placing a $115.2 million bet on timber production as the solution to two converging crises: a shortage of domestic sawmill capacity and a surge in catastrophic wildfires on national forest lands. On March 23, 2026, the USDA announced guaranteed loans to sawmills and wood processing facilities across eight states, deploying the…
A conservation easement covering more than 22,000 acres of Idaho timberland between Mount Spokane and Spirit Lake has permanently barred the land from residential and commercial development — while keeping the saws running. The deal, announced in late March 2026, is the largest single conservation action in the region in years and represents the opening…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved a $25 million loan guarantee to fund a biomass gasification plant in Calaveras County, California — a project that will convert forestry waste from National Forest lands into synthetic natural gas while removing material that fuels catastrophic wildfires. The announcement, made March 23, 2026, signals a federal commitment…
British Columbia’s forestry sector has lost an estimated 15,000 jobs since 2022 and seen 21 permanent or indefinite mill closures since 2023, as U.S. tariffs combine with declining fiber supply and a complex regulatory environment to drive an escalating crisis. Analysts say the province’s actual timber harvest of 32 million cubic metres in 2024 and 2025 falls far short of the government’s 45-million-cubic-metre target — and that domestic policy, not just trade pressure, is driving the gap.
Louisiana is advancing a bill to expand its wood pellet manufacturing industry, but a growing faction of state lawmakers is simultaneously pushing to restrict underground carbon storage — the very infrastructure the bioenergy sector says it needs to remain viable. The resulting standoff reveals a deep divide over how Louisiana balances resource extraction, climate policy, and economic development.
The BLM’s Oregon logging plan proposes to quadruple timber harvest on 2.5 million acres of O&C Lands — targeting 1 billion board feet annually, a level not seen since before the 1990s conservation restrictions. For Oregon’s forest industry, the EIS process that follows will define how much of that supply actually reaches the market.