Hardwood Floors August/September 2018

GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS INDUSTRY INSIGHTS CARBON NEUTRALITY MOVES FORWARD

BigStockPhoto ©

e greater wood products industry has long fought for recognition from the federal government on the carbon neutrality of woody biomass, and it appears the day has nally come. Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a policy statement announcing a policy direction that is intended to: • provide clear recognition of the benefits of using forest biomass for energy production at stationary sources; and • signal the agency’s intent to treat the biogenic CO 2 emissions associated with the use of forest biomass for energy by stationary sources as carbon neutral in future regulatory actions and in various programmatic contexts, in accordance with the Executive Orders and Congressional direction described above. To further entrench this scienti cally based thinking in the U.S. government decision-making process, the EPA is moving to develop a formal rule embodying the principles in the announcement. Recent meetings with EPA o cials suggest that this rule-making may be time-consuming and we should not expect nal action for a couple of years. However, we are encouraged by the signals being sent from the EPA on this critical issue, and we will continue to assist them in forging a nal policy that is bene cial to the entire biomass value chain. is action is just the latest development in years of work by the Hardwood Federation and our allies in the ght to promote the carbon neutrality of biomass. Lumber industry leaders, employees, and Washington representatives have a ended hundreds of meetings and placed countless phone calls to members of Congress and their sta s, cabinet members, and administration o cials of at least three presidents. If this seems like a lot of work to move the needle slowly and incrementally, it is. But the industry remains commi ed to this concept of codi ed biomass carbon neutrality at the federal level because it resides at the very

heart of the wood products industry’s sustainability message and it is a principle that is increasingly under a ack from anti- forestry activists. e Hardwood Federation’s ongoing education e orts with policymakers about the environmental bene ts of forest products operations emphasize the fact that timber arriving at lumber mills represents one step in a larger “carbon cycling” process. Trees are harvested and e ciently converted into oors, millwork, and cabinets at mills that, once installed in homes and commercial buildings, will store the carbon embedded in that wood product for generations.

Parts of the tree that are not t for making wood products, like bark, chip, and sawdust, are combusted for energy recovery, typically in the form of heat and power at lumber facilities or sold to pellet producers or other end-users. At the

All images: BigStockPhoto ©

point where forest biomass is combusted for energy, carbon that had been siphoned from the atmosphere and stored in the tree ber through the duration of its growing years is released into the atmosphere. But what separates wood products’ processes from industries that rely on fossil-derived materials like oil, gas, or coal is that the thriving, sustainable forests from which raw materials are sourced continue the carbon uptake cycle in a virtual loop. In other words, wood product production does not introduce “new” carbon to the atmosphere as fossil fuel combustion does. at’s why we like to describe it as “carbon cycling.” Until recently, we had assumed this was a principle that was beyond dispute. However, over the past few years, many

20 hardwood floors www.hardwoodfloorsmag.com