Loan Program Aims For Wood Processing Facilities

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack has unveiled a new program to support American wood processing facilities, through a partnership with the USDA Rural Development and the USDA Forest Service to provide funding through the Timber Production Expansion Guaranteed Loan Program (TPEP). The program will support the processing and utilization of wood products from National Forest System lands to improve forest health and reduce the risk posed by wildfires, insects, and disease and the detrimental impacts they have on communities and critical infrastructure.

This program is funded through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It also reflects the goals of the President’s Investing in America agenda to rebuild the economy from the bottom up and middle out, and to strengthen the nation’s infrastructure.

Secretary Vilsack explains, “Under the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA Rural Development is partnering with the Forest Service to support timber industry innovations that improve forest health and reduce wildfire threats while creating good-paying jobs for people in rural, forest-dependent communities.”

Through TPEP, $220 million will be made available in loan guarantees for borrowers to establish, reopen, retrofit, expand, or improve wood processing facilities, sawmills and paper mills, that use trees harvested from federal or Tribal lands. The program is designed to manage up to 20 million acres of national forests managed by the FS and complement the FS’s 10-year Wildfire Crisis Strategy.