Letter to Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture - Shaheen Urges Forest Service to Institute Competition to Explore New Uses for Mass Timber

Letter

Dear Secretary Perdue:

We write today to express our appreciation of the USDA's efforts to promote innovative wood uses, and to support a mass timber competition for institutions of higher education. Such a competition will not only provide opportunities for our future decision makers to utilize a remarkable new material, but also help create a stronger and healthier forest products market all while improving the environment. Colleges and universities are also well adept at leveraging seed money with other public and private funds, and could therefore make very efficient use of a federal mass timber competition award.

In 2015, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the USDA had tremendous success in bringing attention to the potential use of wood in tall buildings with the first U.S. Tall Wood Building Prize Competition. We believe an award program utilizing an educational institution is an ideal next step to teach and demonstrate to the next generation of decision-makers, engineers, architects, planners and builders the benefits of mass timber.

Mass timber technology can help colleges and universities across the nation achieve their sustainability goals. Stronger markets create an incentive for landowners to ensure forest land is managed sustainably to reduce wildfire risk and help maintain a high monetary value for timber. Further, mass timber use at our nation's colleges and universities has the additional benefit of supporting wood product markets at the local level.

We appreciate the assistance the USDA has provided thus far, and look forward to working with you on making the mass timber higher education competition a success.

Sincerely,

Source