Forest Resources Association Bulletin
26 April 2010
Vol 12 No 5
On April 20, the National Association of Forest Owners submitted a letter to Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman asking that any definition of "renewable biomass" contained in energy- or climate change-related legislation be broad and "consistent across all relevant federal programs, similar to that of the 2008 Farm Bill" and that "biomass definitions not impose restrictions that would foreclose market opportunities or introduce new federal regulation of public and private lands." FRA is a signatory to the letter, as are the American Forest & Paper Association, the American Loggers Council, the National Association of State Foresters, many other national conservation associations, several leading institutional landowners, and a long list of state forestry and logging associations. The letter's full text (with the list of signatories) is archived at http://nafoalliance.org/kgl-biomass-letter/.
The purpose of the letter is to counter a pressure campaign from several green organizations to restrict opportunities for sustainably managed forests in federal carbon policy, in line with these organizations' opposition to extraction of value from forests and their preference for basing renewable energy or carbon reduction incentives on wind, solar, geothermal systems, and on dedicated short-cycle biomass crops. FRA's endorsement of the letter recognizes that its argument is based on the relationship between sustainable forestry and carbon cycling and the principle of fairness; the letter does not make any representation that a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard or carbon regulation or incentive scheme is a good or bad policy, since FRA and many of the other signatories have no position on that policy question.
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