Hardwood Floors February/March 2017

John Dupra of Installers Warehouse, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY, 20), Dan Natkin of Mannington Mills, and Rick Holden of Derr Flooring meet during the September 2016 Hardwood Federation Fly-in to discuss priority measures.

companies, their executives and their employees to help us with reach out and communications. Please join us in our efforts! The more voices in the choir, the louder the sound! Dana Cole is Executive Director at the Hardwood Federation, a Washington D.C.-based hardwood industry trade association that represents thousands of hardwood businesses in every state in the U.S. and acts as the industry’s advocacy voice on Capitol Hill. She can be reached at Dana.Cole@hardwoodfederation.com.

• Additional authority for categorical exclusions in three key areas: Critical response actions, salvage operations, and for meeting forest plan goals for early successional forests. • Separating fire suppression dollars from proactive forest management programs and eliminating “borrowing” of funds from management programs to pay for underfunded fire suppression activities. strong provisions were included as part of an energy bill conference committee negotiation. Significant progress is being made; we just need to close the deal. As we work our way into 2017, we will collaborate with returning and incoming members of Congress and new Administration officials to push hard for action that addresses all of the above. This includes legislation that must work its way through Congress and the White House as well as regulatory change and implementation that can move through federal agencies like the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior. Of course, we cannot do this alone…we depend on the thousands of hardwood We have come close the last couple of years at getting federal forest reform legislation through Congress. In 2016, very favorable legislation passed the House and

management programs, including federal forest timber sales. The Hardwood Federation has been advocating enactment of legislation providing both management improvements and adequate fire suppression budget mechanisms. Our priority measures include: • Utilizing the private sector and their resources to expedite timber sales at every opportunity including maintenance and expansion of Good Neighbor Authority and Stewardship Contracting Programs. • Reasonable reforms to environmental protection programs, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA), which streamline permitting processes and legal challenges for forest management programs, including timber harvest programs, in ways that ensure certainty and reliable time frames for decision making. • Prioritization implementation of streamlined permitting under the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA), authorized under the 2014 Farm Bill, to projects that reduce a landscape’s susceptibility to insect infestations or disease.

NWFA CEO Michael Martin, Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO, 6), Rep. Billy Long (R-MO, 7), and Darwin Murray of McClain Forest Products at the September Hardwood Federation Fly-in.

the magazine of the nat ional wood f loor ing associat ion

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