USDA invests $80 million to expand timber markets, protect forests, fuel economic growth

Sunday, July 20, 2025 at 6:00 PM

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins today announced the U.S. Forest Service is awarding $80 million in Wood Innovation Grants to spur wood products manufacturing, expand active forest management, and accelerate energy innovation across America’s timber-producing communities.

“The United States is blessed with a bounty of natural resources that we must properly manage to sustain our future economy and boost rural communities. Proper forest use and management lowers our reliance on foreign products and is inherently aligned with President Trump’s America First agenda,” said Secretary Rollins. “We’re investing in innovation that ensures a steady, sustainable supply of American wood that not only supports jobs and fuels economies, it protects the people and communities we serve, as well as the forest resources they depend on to survive and thrive.”

This investment delivers on President Trump’s commitment to unleashing America’s abundant natural resources by tearing down unnecessary barriers that have kept forests dangerously overstocked and unhealthy, putting communities at risk from wildfire and other threats. It also follows through on Secretary Rollins’ memorandums to the Forest Service (PDF, 2.9 MB) to carry out efforts to make forests more productive, $200 million timber investment in May, part of a broader strategy to advance economic opportunity and ensure long-term forest resilience through regulatory streamlining and expedited project approvals.