Community Wood Facilities Assistance Act of 2025
The Community Wood Facilities Assistance Act of 2025 would revamp and expand federal grant support for rural wood facilities. It amends the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 to rename and broaden the existing energy/wood innovation grant program into a Facilities Grant program focused on constructing, expanding, using, or retrofitting forest products manufacturing facilities. The bill also strengthens funding and cost-sharing requirements and adds emphasis on market competitiveness. In addition, it expands the related Wood Innovations Grant Program to explicitly cover broader forest products manufacturing activities (not just retrofitting existing mills) and increases the cost-share from the current level to 50%. Overall, the bill aims to boost local wood-processing capacity, increase processing of forest biomass, and grow rural economies through enhanced, larger-scale federal support. Key changes include raising funding authorization for these programs in coming years, expanding eligible activities to include broader forest products manufacturing, and tightening criteria to emphasize economic viability and competitiveness of projects in rural areas.
Key Points
- 1Renames and restructures the existing grant program from “Energy and Wood Innovation” to “Facilities Grant,” broadening its purpose to support community wood facilities and forest products manufacturing rather than only energy/innovation topics.
- 2Expands eligibility to prioritize primarily forest biomass and to include processing or manufacturing activities, not just energy-related use.
- 3Increases cost-sharing for facilities grants from 35% to 50% and reorganizes the grant structure to emphasize cost effectiveness and market competitiveness as criteria.
- 4Raises the program’s annual funding authorization from $25,000,000 per year (2019–2023) to $50,000,000 per year (2026–2030), effectively doubling potential federal support in the later years.
- 5Expands the scope of the Wood Innovations Grant Program to “Expanding Forest Products Manufacturing,” enabling construction, use, or retrofitting for forest products manufacturing, and increases the required share from a previous level to 50% of the amount.