BRUNSWICK, ME – U.S. Senators Angus King (I-ME), Joe Manchin (D-WV), John Barrasso (R-WY), and Roger Marshall (R-KS) have introduced the America’s Revegetation and Carbon Sequestration (ARCs) Act of 2021, a bipartisan bill aiming to restore forest ecosystems and combat carbon emissions through tree planting, while reducing wildfire fire risk, and expanding the use of innovative forest products such as cross laminated timber. As the most forested state in the nation, the bill would create immense opportunities for Maine’s forest products industry and help to address environmental threats across the state. 

“The health of America’s forests are critical to the long-term economic and environmental health of our nation,” said Senator King. “As the most forested state in the country, Maine understands that working forests support jobs and communities, help to prevent forest fires, and mitigate the effect of climate change. In the face of shifting market demands and rising risks of forest fires, we need to encourage innovative solutions that support the long-term health of our forests and our timber industry. This legislation is the approach we need at the moment – a commonsense, bipartisan bill that protects our forests today and plants the seeds of future success by incentivizing forward-thinking technologies like cross-laminated timber.”

The ARCs Act would:

• Sequester Carbon and Improve Ecosystems Through Revegetation:
• By creating a locally-driven, national revegetation effort. ARCs establishes regional revegetation task forces, each comprised of federal agencies and on-the-ground, non-federal partners. Regional task forces will each develop a 10year comprehensive revegetation strategy and implementation plan, and carry out the plan with special attention paid to ensuring adequate nursery and seed capacity.
• Mitigate Carbon Emissions Through Wildfire Prevention:
• By incentivizing more mechanical thinning and timber harvesting projects on National Forests at very high risk to wildfires. ARCs establishes a non-federal funding stream for these projects through an innovative, first-of-its-kind approach that allows money exchanged for voluntary carbon credits to be used by the Forest Service and its state and local partners.
• Store Carbon Through Expanded Use of Wood Products:
• By increasing mass timber demand, research, and education; by ensuring salvage logging projects can be completed in a timely manner, where appropriate, after disturbance events; and by expanding the use of biochar, a specialty charcoal with immense carbon sequestration potential.

The ARCs Act of 2021 is supported by a broad coalition of organizations, including the National Association of State Foresters, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, National Alliance of Forest Owners, American Forest Resource Council, American Forest Foundation, Federal Forest Resource Coalition, The Nature Conservancy, Society of American Foresters, American Wood Council, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Property and Environment Research Center, and Wyoming Stock Growers Association.

“Decades of non-management, overstocking and a warming climate are fueling catastrophic wildfires on our federal forests. These severe fires are devastating communities, natural landscapes, watersheds, and wildlife habitat, emitting massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and converting our forests into carbon-emitting brush fields choked with dead trees.  We applaud the leadership by these Senators to undertake an unprecedented reforestation effort on federal lands, recognize the carbon benefits of actively managed federal forests and climate-friendly wood products, and promote new and existing markets for wood products made by American workers. We look forward to working these Senators to provide federal land management agencies the funding, policy tools, and oversight needed to reverse the underlying crisis of overstocked, unhealthy forests through preventative, science-based active management,” said Travis Joseph, President and CEO, American Forest Resource Council.

As a governor, Senator, and Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks, Senator King has worked to strengthen and protect America’s forests. Along with the ARCs Act, he recently introduced legislation to create a federal forest health advisory panel, and was key in establishing the Forest Opportunity Roadmap Maine (FOR/ME) Initiative, an industry-led initiative that is helping to diversify the Maine’s wood products businesses, attract investments, support research and development, and develop greater economic prosperity for rural communities impacted by mill closures. Senator King has introduced the Biomass Thermal Utilization (BTU) Act to support renewable energy and Maine’s forest products industry. He is also a cosponsor of several bills focused on climate related initiatives, including the Growing Climate Solutions Act, legislation that would break down barriers to farmers and foresters interested in participating in carbon markets so they can be rewarded for climate-smart practices, and the Trillion Trees Initiative to support U.S. leadership in reducing carbon in the atmosphere by restoring and conserving forests, grasslands, wetlands, and coastal habitats.  

A one-page summary of the bill is available here.