[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 84 (Thursday, May 18, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1749-S1750]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself, Ms. Collins, Mrs. Shaheen, and 
        Mr. Kelly):
  S. 1735. A bill to amend the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act 
of 2002 to improve assistance to community wood facilities, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and 
Forestry.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I rise today to introduce the 
Community Wood Facilities Assistance Act of 2023 and thank my 
colleagues, Senators Collins, Shaheen, and Kelly, for joining me as 
original cosponsors of the bill.
  This bill will assist with the construction of facilities that make 
sustainable use of small-diameter timber from forest-thinning projects 
and other needed treatments in eastern and western forests.
  In doing so, the bill would also create jobs in rural and forest-
dependent communities while decreasing wildfire risk in our vulnerable 
forests.
  The Forest Service reports that 80 million acres of Forest Service 
lands are at risk of catastrophic wildfire or abnormal levels of insect 
and disease infestations.
  These impacts are only made worse by historic levels of drought. In 
California alone, 129 million trees have died across 8.9 million acres 
due to drought and bark beetles. Thirty-six million of those tree 
deaths were in 2022, triple the number from the previous year. This is 
clearly a crisis.

[[Page S1750]]

  Removing select small trees and other hazardous fuels in our forests 
are critical for preserving our forests over the long term. Not only 
does this ease the competition large trees face for water, it also 
reduces the spread of bark beetles and makes the forest less 
susceptible to catastrophic wildfire.
  Between the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction 
Act, Congress has provided billions of dollars for hazardous fuels 
reduction and forest thinning work. What is needed now is the economic 
infrastructure to support this work.
  Unfortunately, the number of sawmills, bioenergy facilities, and 
other forest-product companies have been shrinking for decades. This is 
due in part to increased production efficiency, but in other instances, 
market instability forced the closure of many large mills.
  One result of the decrease in sawmills is the inability for the 
market to react nimbly to supply and demand. In 2020, even though 
massive wildfires should have meant a boom in salvageable trees, the 
COVID-19 pandemic constrained mill capacity and throughput. This 
constraint, along with a surge in consumer demand, led to a near 400 
percent increase in lumber prices, which are only now resolving.
  An analysis by The Nature Conservancy and Bain and Company management 
consultants recommended incentives to ``bridge the gap between the cost 
of ecological thinning and the economic viability of wood-processing 
infrastructure.''
  As the report explains, ``If more aggressive restoration targets can 
be met, there will be significant need for additional processing 
capacity to defray restoration costs and provide valuable end uses for 
thinned material.''
  Our bill would make targeted changes to existing Forest Service grant 
programs to help the forest product industry grow and provide outlets 
for the billions of acres of wood that will result from the investments 
made in the bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act.
  The two grant programs we target in this bill are the Community Wood 
Energy and Wood Innovations Grant Program and the Wood Innovations 
Program.
  These programs would benefit from changes, particularly from higher 
Federal cost-shares and an increased ability to provide more funding 
for each project, in addition to a higher authorized funding.
  The first of these, the Community Wood Energy and Wood Innovations 
Grant Program, provides grants for the capital cost of small wood 
products facilities. Our bill would first change the name to avoid 
confusion with the Wood Innovations Program.
  Our bill would also double the authorization level to $50 million per 
year, allow the program to fund new facility construction in addition 
to improvements. The maximum grant amount would also increase from $1 
to $5 million, and the Federal cost share would increase from 35 
percent to 50 percent, making it easier for small companies to use.
  Our bill will also revise the Forest Service's Wood Innovations Grant 
Program, which provides grants for innovative uses and applications of 
wood products and the expansion of related markets. It would similarly 
allow this program to be used for new facilities in addition to 
retrofits and improvements and lower the minimum non-Federal cost-share 
from 50 percent to 33.3 percent.
  Congress has an opportunity this year to make these important changes 
to these grant programs and help stimulate a self-sustaining forest 
product economy and promote healthier forests. I thank Senators 
Collins, Shaheen, and Kelly for their partnership on this bill, and I 
urge the full Senate to promptly take up this bill and pass it as soon 
as possible.

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