Sponsors (4)
The bill shifts federal construction toward domestically produced mass timber and greater lifecycle emissions transparency—boosting rural timber jobs and lowering embodied carbon for public buildings—while risking higher taxpayer costs, procurement delays, administrative burden, and potential exclusion of small or tribal suppliers.
Rural timber manufacturers, small businesses, and rural communities will see increased demand and jobs because federal and military building projects will prioritize U.S.-made innovative wood and mass timber.
Communities and local governments near forests will benefit from reduced catastrophic wildfire risk because procurement preference for products sourced from restoration and wildfire‑protection forest management encourages practices that lower fire risk to people and infrastructure.
Taxpayers and local/state governments may see lower embodied carbon in federal buildings as using engineered wood and mass timber can reduce lifecycle emissions and support federal climate goals.
Taxpayers will likely face higher construction costs if domestic mass timber is more expensive or less available, raising the budgets for federal and military building projects.
State and local governments and federal construction projects may face delays and reduced competition because strict domestic and certification sourcing rules could limit the pool of qualifying suppliers and slow project schedules.
Federal agencies and employees (GSA, USDA) will incur additional administrative burden and costs to complete ISO‑compliant whole-building GWP assessments within the required 180 days, diverting staff time and resources.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires GSA and DoD to prioritize domestically produced mass timber/innovative wood products for federal public buildings and mandates an ISO‑compliant lifecycle GWP assessment within 180 days.
Introduced March 24, 2025 by Jeff Merkley · Last progress March 24, 2025
Requires the General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator and the Secretary of Defense to prioritize use of domestically produced innovative wood products and mass timber when contracting for construction, alteration, acquisition, or lease of federal public buildings, giving maximum practicable preference to products from U.S. facilities and U.S. forestlands sourced from “responsible sources.” Directs the GSA Administrator, in consultation with USDA, to complete a cradle-to-gate, whole-building lifecycle global warming potential assessment for new public buildings that use innovative wood products within 180 days of enactment and to report the results to Congress and the public within 180 days after finishing the assessment. This creates a federal procurement preference (not a cash appropriation) and a short, specific scientific reporting requirement; it does not establish new funding or broader program changes.