In mid-October, USDA’s Under Secretaries for Natural Resources & Environment, Rural Development, and Farm & Foreign Agriculture Services launched a major new Wood-to-Energy Initiative that seeks to build a forest restoration economy by integrating wood-to-energy activities within the larger forest products sector. Consisting of a broad-scale effort to coordinate USDA technical and program support to stimulate the wood-to-energy sector, the initiative takes its cue from the Administration’s emphasis on the role of renewable fuels and forest restoration in sustaining rural jobs and prosperity, which has been expressed in numerous contexts by senior Administration officials including Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.
