Pending legislation in the US could open up wider domestic markets for wood fuel pellets and force federal agencies to give preferential consideration to the product. Source: Biomass magazine
The Forest Products Fairness Act of 2012 (H.R. 5873), which is recent legislation aims to add a wide range of forestry products including fuel pellets, as qualifying products under the USDA’s BioPreferred program.
The BioPreferred aims to increase the use of biobased products through a federal procurement requirement, and a biobased labeling program. In its current form, the program excludes most forest products from participating.
This federal procurement portion of the program could help create significantly larger markets for biobased fuel pellets.
According to the USDA, the federal procurement component of the product requires federal agencies and their contractors to give preferential consideration to categories of biobased products designated by the USDA. In other words, the BioPreferred program basically requires a federal department or office to purchase a qualified biobased product over a petroleum-based product when available and feasible.
In the event the pending legislation becomes law, these federal agencies, departments and offices could be required to give preference to biobased fuel pellets when feasible. For example, a federal facility that operates a coal-fired boiler under certain circumstances could be required to replace a portion of the coal used with biobased fuel pellets.
