Posted on 03/02/2025 2:17:08 AM PST by Libloather
President Donald Trump on Saturday signed two executive orders that call for immediately expanding American lumber production and addressing lumber imports' threat to national security.
The orders aim to update guidance on production, streamline permitting, and assess possible risks that imports pose to national security.
A White House official told Fox News the president identified a crisis in both supply and demand in an industry the U.S. should be entirely self-sufficient in.
The executive order notes that the production of timber, lumber, paper, bioenergy, and other wood products is crucial for Americans in construction and energy production.
Recent disasters, the administration pointed out, show the importance of forest management and wildfire risk-reduction projects.
Officials alleged that the Biden-era timber and lumber policies triggered wildfires and degraded fish and wildlife habitats, while driving up construction and housing costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
Everything Biden touched turned into crap. Either totally incompetent, or deliberate, or both. I’ll go with both. I cannot imagine how much worse it would be if Pres. Trump lost. Cabala would continue the destruction of our country, until we became China’s slaves.
May be time to modernize home construction...(looking at you L.A./wildfire/hurricane areas). Get domestic concrete, steel, and sheetrock/drywall production up...boo to crappy Chinese drywall):
https://newhousebuilder.com/insulated-concrete-forms/
https://www.kodiaksteelhomes.com
https://todayshomeowner.com/general/guides/metal-studs-and-steel-framing-guide/
Tell the Owls to find a small stand....and stop with the....you need thousands of acres.
Hopefully, some common sense here to drastically limit catastrophic wild life BBQs.
It seems that in order to get those owls those thousands of acres, the left lets millions of acres burn along with untold thousands of animals being burned alive. Including their precious owls. Not that the left cares about that. It is more important to keep American lumber workers unemployed, and American lumber mills shut down. That has always been the goal and they have succeeded very well!
This is to help offset Canadian lumber price increases from the upcoming tariffs. Probably won’t help much as 85% of lumber comes from Canada. Inviroweenies will tie up the courts if we try to open up new forests for lumber.
Living next to and traveling in a National forest for hunting fishing hiking and other outdoor activities.
The amount of prime trees left to rot and just fall down over the last 30 years.
Is just tragic.
Millions and millions of acres placed off limits by wilderness rulings.
I believe the USA has a large inventory of harvestable trees which could be accessed easily with a stroke of the pen. I’m a builder and developer. I’ve been told the conversion of the raw materials to finished products is the bottleneck to rapidly replacing Canadian output. Lumber mills are expensive to install and it’s difficult to gauge long-term demand. The construction industry demand is volatile with business cycles, interest rates, weather and migration patterns affecting product demands. I’m sure President Trump’s economic guru’s are aware of this and hopefully working on strategies to help USA producers build these new processing plants.
It’s been a while but at one point Siskiyou County in northern CA. had something like 50 mills. Then Clinton declared most of the area to be ‘roadless’ and haul road construction was a no-no even though most of them are still there though unmaintained since the 90’s. There’s now one peeler plant in Yreka making skins for plywood.
I send redwood logs to a mill in Santa Cruz. They stopped buying logs recently because their decks were full of salvage from a major burn in the area. Supply exceeded capacity and demand. You are correct about volatility.
Dear Fed,
I have a few very large poplar and hickory trees and so does my neighborhood. Come and get them, they’re free for the taking!
Oregon has vast forests. I think timber production plummeted after “environmentalists” took over.
Does anyone know if these are Federal lands?
While driving the backroads in Southern Ohio & Eastern Kentucky over the last several years. I’ve seen large logging operations. One farm my dad used to hunt on, has been virtually cleared of hardwood trees. The former owner died and the rights were bought by an out of state interest. I was told most out were bound for China. Used to be coal trucks you passed on those Ky roads, now it’s loggers.
American lumber workers are people who help turn trees into products.
American timber workers are people who harvest trees for American lumber workers.
I have a few very large poplar and hickory trees and so does my neighborhood. Come and get them, they’re free for the taking!
—
Contact your local tree service people, but they do need to be paid.
Yes, most of the West is owned by the Feds.
I would urge you to do some research on the house that survived the Laguna Beach fire about twenty years ago.
There were multiple articles about this one particular house that was left with minimal damage while EVERY other house on the hillside was burned to the foundation.
It has more to do with the type of materials on the exterior and the ventilation of the roof/attic system.
The biggest difference is the fact that it didn’t have the typical soffit vents underneath the overhangs.
The issue with these is that even if the entire exterior is made from fire resistant materials the external temperature eventually raises the internal temperature inside the overhang to the point of spontaneous combustion.
The article I recall was in the LA Times detailing the bullet points of the construction.
They wept like anything to see such quantities of CO2 then they let CA burn! They should rname the state CA02 because it’s all oxidized.
“Recent disasters, the administration pointed out, show the importance of forest management and wildfire risk-reduction projects.”
How many homes and violins and paper straws could we have built/made with all that wood. It just went up in smoke instead.
SAVE the forests and the Spotted Owl & Snail Darter, while our homes BURN!
I am not sure where you got the 85% number but that is not even close to correct.
It is more like 25%.
I have been a lumber broker for 40 years.
Yes, in certain areas like the northeast a larger percentage comes from Canada.
However, in the highest volume building areas like Texas, Florida and California very little comes from Canada.
It is a function of freight that affects the eventual delivered price to its final destination.
Lumber is a commodity.
Meaning one species from one area can generally be replaced by a specie from another area. Although there are performances from region to region.
The issue becomes when one species is CHEAPER than the other. Then over time the end uses in that area switch because their competition is willing to use the less expensive lumber.
Then to be competitive they switch too.
This is what has been happening for about ten years now. More and more users are switching to Southern Yellow Pine and away from Western SPF from BC and Alberta.
SYP is the least expensive tree species in the world.
It can be grown to harvestable size in 30-40 years.
This is significantly less than every other species on the planet.
It also grows in all the Right to Work states.
Which means the sawmills are generally non union.
The other major factor was the devastating effects of the Mountain Pine Beetle on the Lodgepole timber of BC.
The BC mills cut heavily for ten years to get rid of all the dead and dying timber.
Now, mills up there are closing because of lack of timber supply.
However, those same corporate sawmills have seen the writing on the wall for 10-15 years.
Every one of them now owns sawmills in the USA. Primary in AL, MS, LA where the timber supply is the least expensive and most abundant.
Many of these corporations bought existing mills.
Some built brand new ones.
Some both.
So, now there is an oversupply of SYP lumber.
Which has brought down prices even more of that particular species.
In addition over the last ten years there has been an influx of European lumber up and down the eastern seaboard.
It started primarily in Florida and the Carolinas.
Now, every port from Providence, New Haven, Philly, Baltimore, Wilmington, Savannah, Canaveral, Tampa, Mobile, NO, and Houston all are receiving lumber from Europe.
There is also OSB coming from Ireland and Poland.
In addition for decades there has been plywood coming from South America and Radiata Pine coming from South America and New Zealand.
Much of These imports are due to the strength of the US dollar in comparison to other currencies.
Prior to the war my company was bringing in a Russian lumber.
Then a 35% tariff was added to it and that stopped.
Plus a lot of people were not too keen on buying Russian lumber the last few years.
FYI, the Nordic Spruce coming from Russia is some of the best quality lumber in the world.
Many other European sawmills were buying Russian timber and bringing it to their sawmills in western Europe because of the quality and price of logs.
All this being said there is still a local preference for lumber.
Now that many people have tried European Nordic Spruce they are willing to pay extra for it.
On the other hand is the fact that almost all Pressure Treated and Fire Treated lumber in the US is predominantly Southern Yellow Pine.
This is because the species takes the treatment better than other wood.
SYP is also stronger than all other softwoods.
So, when building roof or floor trusses it is the predominant species.
Although in the western US most truss plants use Douglas Fir and Larch.
In California many customers still buy Green Douglas Fir.
Some of that still comes into Long Beach on boats from Washington State.
Then if you get into timbers 4x4s and larger almost all of these are either SYP or Douglas Fir.
If you get into Engineered wood products they can be made out of all the domestic and foreign species.
Almost all construction now includes various Engineered wood that has taken the place of what used to be solid sawn lumber.
I am referring to wooden I joists , LVL(laminated veneer lumber) and CLT panels (Cross Laminated Timber) panels.
CLT were started in Europe but are now being produced here.
They are primarily being used in the construction of multiple story commercial buildings made of wood products.
A lot has changed in my forty years in the business.
Many companies have come and gone.
Change is constant.
The current Tariffs being proposed could literally put many Canadian sawmills out of business.
So, people are scared how this is going to affect their future.
Even on my trading floor there are people who predominantly make their living buying and selling Canadian lumber.
They are nervous about the future.
Same story with the ones bringing in European lumber.
Change is scary.
The key for my company is we will roll with the changes.
Some will pull out and reread their copy of “Who Moved My Cheese”
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