2014 Farm Bill Logs National Forests for Bioenergy

- Decem­ber 17, 2014, U.S. Depart­ment of Agriculture

Agri­cul­ture Sec­re­tary Tom Vil­sack today announced that more than 200,000 tons of bio­mass were removed from fed­er­al lands through the Bio­mass Crop Assis­tance Pro­gram (BCAP). BCAP, reau­tho­rized by the 2014 Farm Bill, pro­vid­ed incen­tives for the removal of dead or dis­eased trees from Nation­al Forests and Bureau of Land Man­age­ment lands for renew­able ener­gy, while reduc­ing the risk of for­est fire. This sum­mer, 19 ener­gy facil­i­ties in 10 states par­tic­i­pat­ed in the program.

“This ini­tia­tive helps to retrieve for­est residues that are a fire risk, but oth­er­wise are cost­ly to remove,” said Vil­sack. “In just three months, work­ing with pri­vate part­ners across the coun­try, the pro­gram helped to reduced fire, dis­ease and insect threats while pro­vid­ing more bio­mass feed­stock for advanced ener­gy facilities.”

The U.S. Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture’s (USDA) Farm Ser­vice Agency admin­is­tered the pro­gram ear­li­er this year. Eli­gi­ble farm­ers, ranch­ers or foresters par­tic­i­pat­ing in BCAP received a pay­ment to par­tial­ly off­set the cost of har­vest­ing and deliv­er­ing for­est or agri­cul­tur­al residues to a qual­i­fied ener­gy facil­i­ty. Up to $12.5 mil­lion is avail­able each year for bio­mass removal.

Key pro­gram accom­plish­ments include:

In Col­orado’s Front Range, 18,000 tons of trees tar­get­ed by the USDA For­est Ser­vice to reduce for­est fire threats were removed to gen­er­ate energy.

In Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Rim Fire area in Tuolumne Coun­ty, near­ly 100 per­cent of the USDA For­est Ser­vice’s tar­get­ed 40,000 tons of for­est residue was approved for removal and trans­port to ener­gy facilities.

In Ari­zona, 41,000 tons of for­est residue in Apache and Nava­jo coun­ties were approved for removal and trans­port to ener­gy facilities.

In Osco­da Coun­ty, Mich., home of the Huron Man­is­tee Nation­al For­est, 5,000 tons of for­est residue were approved for removal and trans­port to ener­gy facilities.

These accom­plish­ments helped the For­est Ser­vice meet or exceed its restora­tion goals for Fis­cal Year 2014, includ­ing reduc­ing haz­ardous fuels on 1.7 mil­lion acres in the wild­land urban inter­face and sus­tain­ing or restor­ing water­shed con­di­tions on 2.9 mil­lion acres, result­ing in 2.8 bil­lion board feet of tim­ber vol­ume sold. To fur­ther sup­port this pro­gram, the For­est Ser­vice has entered into a three-year, $1.5 mil­lion agree­ment to pro­vide tech­ni­cal assis­tance to the Farm Ser­vice Agency as they imple­ment BCAP on Nation­al For­est Sys­tem lands. This will enable the devel­op­ment and exe­cu­tion of bio­mass sales, and help open and sup­port new and exist­ing mar­kets for bio­mass products.

USDA will issue a final reg­u­la­tion this win­ter to incor­po­rate BCAP updates estab­lished in the 2014 Farm Bill. The next fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty will be announced once updates are incorporated.

BCAP was reau­tho­rized by the 2014 Farm Bill. The Farm Bill builds on his­toric eco­nom­ic gains in rur­al Amer­i­ca over the past five years, while achiev­ing mean­ing­ful reform and bil­lions of dol­lars in sav­ings for tax­pay­ers. Since enact­ment, USDA has made sig­nif­i­cant progress to imple­ment each pro­vi­sion of this crit­i­cal leg­is­la­tion, includ­ing pro­vid­ing dis­as­ter relief to farm­ers and ranch­ers; strength­en­ing risk man­age­ment tools; expand­ing access to rur­al cred­it; fund­ing crit­i­cal research; estab­lish­ing inno­v­a­tive pub­lic-pri­vate con­ser­va­tion part­ner­ships; devel­op­ing new mar­kets for rur­al-made prod­ucts; and invest­ing in infra­struc­ture, hous­ing and com­mu­ni­ty facil­i­ties to help improve qual­i­ty of life in rur­al Amer­i­ca. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.usda.gov/farmbill.

Vis­it www.fsa.usda.gov/bcap or con­tact a local FSA coun­ty office at http://go.usa.gov/pYV3 to learn more about BCAP.