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The U.S. Department of Agriculture Administrator (USDA) for the Rural Business and Cooperative Service, J.R. Claeys, announced the USDA is guaranteeing $115.2 million across eight states through the Timber Production Expansion Guaranteed Loan Program (TPEP) to ensure sawmills and wood processing facilities have the necessary funding to improve operations.
Recipients include the states of California, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Oklahoma, Virginia and Wisconsin.
“We cannot allow wildfires to devastate and destroy our rural communities,” Claeys says. “That’s why the USDA is taking bold action to stop the destruction of our forestlands by investing in sawmills and wood processing facilities that support sustainable timber harvesting. These actions strengthen local businesses, support rural prosperity, and create jobs for hardworking Americans.”
TPEP is made possible by a partnership between USDA’s Rural Development and the U.S. Forest Service. The program helps address the wildfire crisis by investing in local sawmills that clear out dangerous fuel in our forestlands, helping to remove the most immediate threats to communities, critical infrastructure, and natural resources. This program is available to qualified lenders whose loan applicants want to establish, reopen, expand, or improve a sawmill or other wood processing facility that processes ecosystem restoration byproducts from U.S Forest Service National Forest System lands.
“The value of National Forest Systems lands is demonstrated by providing various forest products, such as timber, lumber, paper, bioenergy, and other wood products,” says Tom Schultz, U.S. Forest Service chief. “The American forest products industry is critical to maintaining the health of the nation’s forests. The Timber Production and Expansion Guaranteed Loan Program is one of many ways the Forest Service partners with the timber industry to maintain rural jobs, processing facilities, and an outlet for wood that needs to be removed from national forests.”
