LEESBURG, VA. – American Wood Council (AWC) President and CEO Jackson Morrill issued the following statement in response to Randy Moore’s appointment as the 20th Chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Forest Service.

In TIME’s recent article published on June 2 (Wildfires Are Getting Worse, So Why Is the U.S. Still Building Homes With Wood?), reporter Alana Samuels makes a bizarre case for building houses out of concrete and steel instead of wood. Rather than exploring the carbon footprint and climate consequences of using more man-made, energy-intensive building materials, Samuels saves her scrutiny entirely for wood -- a natural, renewable, biodegradable building material, grown in abundance in the United States. The resulting story is an unchecked talking points memo on the “environmental benefits” of two of the most fossil fuel intensive materials in building and construction.

LEESBURG, VA. – The American Wood Council (AWC) has released a two-pager outlining a variety of issues that have spurred an imbalance between lumber supply and demand, and more importantly, what can be done about it.

LEESBURG, VA. – On June 11, the North Carolina Department of Insurance (NCDOI) issued a news release warning of the use of European lumber in North Carolina. The news release identified several potential use issues given the building community’s lack of familiarity with European lumber and served to alert suppliers, designers, builders, and regulators that lumber should be used in accordance with applicable codes and standards; however, there were several statements that need to be clarified or corrected.

LEESBURG, VA. – The American Wood Council (AWC) has released a new publication for fire design of wood members, assemblies, and connections to meet code requirements. The 2021 Fire Design Specification for Wood Construction (FDS) is available for free download on the AWC website: awc.org/codes-standards/publications/fds-2021.

LEESBURG, VA. – North American softwood sawmill capacity increased by 1.4 billion board feet in the last year, according to Forisk. Most of that increased capacity – 1.1. billion board feet – was from manufacturing in the U.S. South. In fact, the entire wood products manufacturing sector continues to produce at the highest levels since the Great Recession, according to the Federal Reserve Board.

LEESBURG, VA. – The American Wood Council (AWC) completed testing of connections used in recent full-scale tests of cross-laminated timber (CLT) diaphragm. The latest test results indicated that the connections performed better than expected, resulting in higher than expected shear capacities of the CLT diaphragms.

LEESBURG, VA. – The American Wood Council (AWC) has released a carbon policy platform that would help unlock the potential for wood products to be a low-carbon building material solution on a large scale in the United States.