Energy Issues
The forest products industry employs 1.5 million workers, including 250,000 union jobs and has a payroll of $40.8 billion. The industry ranks among the top 10 employers in 42 U.S. states, and provides high-skill, high-wage jobs in paper and wood manufacturing. Working in cooperation with our industry partners, the Forest Products Industry National Labor Management Committee understands the value of conservation, efficiency and renewable fuels. As both a major energy user and large-scale energy producer, we are committed to meeting our nation's demand for quality paper and wood products while promoting sustainable forestry and environmental practices within our industry. Our environmental stewardship efforts in the area of energy efficiency include:
Reducing Energy Consumption: As the largest user of co-generated heat and power, the forest products industry has reduced total energy consumption per ton of paper produced by 30 percent. We are also recycling leaders, recovering nearly half of all the paper and paperboard Americans use each year.
Carbon Sequestration: Managed forests remove and sequester 17 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. We support the award-winning Sustainable Forestry InitiativeSM (SFI), an innovative program to responsibly manage our forestlands and ecosystems.
Investing in Improved Environmental Quality: Our industry was the first to form a voluntary partnership with the EPA to develop the innovative "Cluster Rule." The results include an investment of more than $2.8 billion in environmental upgrades to implement this comprehensive program governing air and water quality.
Our Priorities
We support the following priorities to promote high-skill, high-wage jobs for union members across the nation:
Expand Cogeneration: On-site Energy Efficiency
Our industry leads all other manufacturing sectors in on-site electricity generation, producing nearly 43 percent of our nation's self-generated electricity primarily, from highly efficient cogeneration processes using renewable "biomass" fuels, such as bark and pulping byproducts.
Cogeneration derives electricity and useful heat from a single energy source while producing lower air emissions per unit of output. This on-site energy efficiency not only reduces our direct demand for electricity from the grid; but allows many facilities to sell excess electricity to the grid.
We support incentives to facilitate and expand cogeneration.
Provide Incentives for Biomass Fuels
Biomass fuels (non-fossil plant materials) are renewable natural resources and are considered carbon-neutral in relation to greenhouse gas emissions when combusted. By utilizing biomass, such as bark, wood residuals and wood extractives from pulping, our industry is able to further divert waste from landfills and, at the same time, produce energy for its operations.
We support listing biomass as "green" or "environmentally preferred" and accord incentives to promote wider use (i.e., tax incentives, research and development funding and expedited state permitting processes).
Reform New Source Review: Increase Energy Efficiency
Efficient and effective energy management have been a high priority of our industry for decades. Since 1972, we have reduced the average total energy usage per ton of paper produced by 30 percent and fossil fuel usage by 53 percent. Yet our industry is hampered in its efforts to make additional modifications that would increase energy efficiency at its plants by complex and burdensome New Source Review (NSR) regulations.
As currently applied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state permitting authorities, NSR falsely assumes that any change in operations will result in increased potential emissions – even a switch to newer, more efficient technologies or cleaner power sources that would have undeniable environmental and energy benefits. Once NSR is triggered, it can take up to two years to receive a permit. The uncertainty and the wait involved in complying with NSR regulations are often enough to "kill" beneficial projects.
We support NSR reform in order to accelerate needed energy projects.
Support Biomass Gasification: The Newest Renewable Fuel Technology
The forest products industry has been working with the Department of Energy's (DOE) Agenda 2020 program to develop biomass gasification technologies. If fully commercialized, these technologies could make the U.S. forest products industry totally energy self-reliant and generate a surplus of 22 gigawatts of power to the grid – the equivalent of one-half of California's peak summertime electric use. The carbon displacement from biomass gasification could be even more dramatic, transforming the industry from emitting 24 million tons of carbon each year to displacing at least 18 million tons of greenhouse gas from fossil fuels – before taking into consideration the carbon sequestration benefits of forests. But as great as these benefits are, developing and commercializing this technology is a risky business.
We support the continued partnership with DOE – a partnership that is critical to the success of these breakthrough technologies.
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