Take Action:

Ask the Senate to advance renewable energy goals that don’t harm our industry

The Senate is likely to consider energy legislation this spring. The centerpiece is expected to be a mandate on utilities to generate 20 percent of their electricity from renewable resources, such as biomass, by 2021. This proposal is known as a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), and creates winners and losers between existing renewable energy industries, such as the forest products industry, and new power generators.

To influence this fast-tracked energy legislation, we must act quickly. We need to communicate with Senators about our concerns with the current renewable energy proposals and proposed modifications to improve them.

AF&PA believes that renewable energy policy should provide equal treatment for the renewable energy generated from biomass at existing industry facilities, promote sustainable forest management, and include provisions to increase biomass supply.

Background and Information

The economic downturn has had a disproportionate impact on the forest products industry. Since early 2006, the industry has lost 190,000 jobs—15 percent of its workforce. Many paper and wood products facilities are in rural areas where they are the economic hub of their communities. We must urge Congress to enact solutions that will preserve the industry’s “green” jobs, not harm them.

There are solutions available that will advance the goals of renewable energy without doing harm to the forest products industry, including:

• Equal treatment for the forest products industry’s power in the tax code and in renewable electricity mandates.

o Issue fully tradable credits in an RES to forest products facilities for the renewable power they generate whether used onsite or sold onto the grid.

o Make renewable biomass energy generated and used onsite by the industry eligible for the Section 45 tax credit.

· Promote sustainable forest management in the RES.

· Address biomass supply and demand.

Ask your Senator to advance renewable energy goals that don't harm our industry

For more information regarding the forest products industry and renewable energy, please click here.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

We urge you to send this action alert to your employees and/or member companies. Please encourage them to use the Grow the Vote website to send a letter to their Senator. A sample letter is available at www.growthevote.org – all your employees and members have to do is fill in their name and click send.