WVFA eNews Weekly

Industry News

A WV legislative conference committee (composed of selected House and Senate members) was successful in forging a compromise bill that was acceptable to both Houses. Now, the "Open & Obvious" bill is on its way to the Governor for his approval. The adopted bill (SB 13) reinstates the legal doctrine for limiting lawsuits on property owners when someone is injured by an obvious risk that was reasonably apparent or known to the injurious.

Truck Weights

The U.S. forest industry is compelled to spend more on per-unit raw material transport than its global competitors. Enabling a log truck to increase its payload by one-sixth could reduce total hauling costs by close to that amount and (conservatively) reduce net cost of transporting raw materials by five percent. Although transport from woods to mill is a relatively brief phase within the wood supply process, it accounts for approximately 30 percent of the total cost of raw material. While technological development has lowered the per-unit cost of harvesting, federal truck weight rules—limiting gross vehicle weight to 80,000 pounds on five axles on the Interstate system—have prevented any savings in basic transport, adding to the overall cost of manufacturing. Many U.S. competitors, including Canada, Scandinavia and South America, haul under much less restrictive weight rules. Seasonal or freight-specific waivers in certain states demonstrate the safety and increasing gross vehicle weight requirements. Forestry community allies worked in the 113th Congress to correct this situation and they plan to continue efforts this year.

Green Building

The American Wood Council writes that more attention is being paid than ever before to how buildings impact the environment, including the choices of materials used in construction and how those materials help conserve energy during operation. The green building market reached an estimated high of $140 billion by 2013 (latest number), and securing a strong place for wood is essential to the wood products industry's future growth. That means telling the positive story of wood's renewable, energy efficient advantages, and defending against anti-wood bias in rating systems. Strong, unified industry support is essential as the green building battlefield continues to spread from the state to the federal level. Wood is the perfect green building material because it is renewable, stores carbon that reduces greenhouse gases, and is energy efficient. Winning acceptance for wood is a challenge, however, as competing materials and certain environmental groups seek to control the U.S. green building market. Additionally, some green building rating systems, such as the U.S. Green Building Council's well-known LEED rating system, contain scientifically indefensible biases against wood and many U.S.-sourced wood products. LEED is aggressively seeking a government-sanctioned monopoly on rating systems which would seriously harm the use of U.S. wood products. So, expect to see efforts from the wood industry to correct this in the coming months.