Administration Revokes Obama E.O. that Gave Preference to FSC Wood Products

Last week, President Trump signed an Executive Order requiring agencies to "prioritize actions that reduce waste, cut costs, enhance the resilience of Federal infrastructure and operations, and enable more effective accomplishment of its mission."  This new Order revokes the 2015 Obama Order for sustainable federal buildings that led to the EPA guidelines giving preference to Forestry Stewardship Council certified wood over other forest products certification systems. The Obama Order conflicted with the USDA BioBased/BioPreferred system that already sets standards for forest products procurement by the government and allows interested manufactures to use the BioBased label for marketing to consumer, upon qualifying for the label.  While these guidelines were put under review during the Obama Administration and we did not expect the current Administration to move them forward, there was concern that a future Administration would enact these guidelines.

 

SLMA has advocated for ending the guidelines since published in 2015, working with industry partners to secure legislative language in the 2018 Appropriations Omnibus and the on-going farm bill process to permanently to this effect.