LEESBURG, VA. – The American Wood Council (AWC) is kicking off National Forest Products Week today with a virtual panel discussion to highlight the public-private partnership that drove the construction of the University of Idaho’s mass timber arena. The panel will be recorded and available later this week as an eCourse. The University received two Wood Innovation Grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that were used develop the proof of concept of the design, which officially opened to the public earlier this month.

LEESBURG, VA. – The American Wood Council (AWC) today announced the election of Roseburg Forest Products President and CEO Grady Mulbery and LP Building Solutions Senior Vice President of Manufacturing Services Mike Blosser to the AWC Board of Directors, effective immediately.

The article, “Hidden dangers: Some of today’s building techniques worry fire experts,” left the reader questioning the fire safety of modern wood frame construction. It is unfortunate the author failed to do his homework and talk to the experts from the National Fire Protection Association, located in Quincy, MA. Fire experts, including those at NFPA, have studied the science and fire testing, which inform the ICC mass timber code provisions under consideration now in Massachusetts, as well as the 2021 NFPA Building Construction and Safety Code, which allows for tall mass timber structures up to 24 stories!

WASHINGTON – American Wood Council (AWC) President and CEO Jackson Morrill issued the following statement following the House Agriculture Committee’s draft legislation recommendations for the reconciliation package. The proposed program allocations include $1 billion to provide grants under the wood innovation grant program, $100 million for the forest inventory and analysis (FIA), and $50 million for the research mission area of the Forest Service to carry out greenhouse gas life cycle analyses of domestic wood products.

WASHINGTON – American Wood Council (AWC) President and CEO Jackson Morrill issued a statement following the House Armed Service Committee’s markup of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included language to establish a pilot program to evaluate the effects of using mass timber products in Department of Defense military construction projects.

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.