ESFPA E-News

ESFPA Would Like to Wish Everyone a Happy Arbor Day 2023!

Photo taken by Matthew Pecorella, the winner of this year's Arbor Day Poster Contest 

Sign Up for ESFPA June Dinner

On June 14th, the day prior to the ESFPA Board Meeting, we are welcoming our members and their guests to join us for an evening social hour and dinner at the Holiday Valley Lodge in Ellicottville, NY. 

Our guest speakers will be New York Senator George Borrello and Baillie Lumber President Jeff Meyer. The itinerary for the evening is as follows:

• 5:00 p.m. -Social Hour at the Holiday Valley Lodge Sunrise Banquet Room
• 6:00 p.m.- Welcome from NY Senator George Borello and remarks on the 2023 legislative session 
• 6:30 p.m.- Buffet Dinner
• 7:30 p.m.- Remarks from Baillie Lumber President Jeff Meyer about the state of the hardwood industry. 

This event will be a great opportunity for learning and networking with top industry professionals and the Board of ESFPA. If you are interested in attending this event, please call ESFPA at (518) 463-1297. Rooms will be available for booking until May 14th (see link above) and the deadline for event attendance is June 1st. 

The fee is $20 per person, and we would like to thank our sponsors for all their support, without which this would not have been possible: Cotton Hanlon, Wagner Group, Farm Credit East, Keister Consulting, and Gutchess Lumber. 

Feel free to send this invitation to your employees and peers. Looking forward to seeing you there!

ESFPA Signs on to Forest Stewardship Program Support Letter

This week, ESFPA signed on to the FY24 appropriations support letter for the USFS Forest Stewardship Program.

Today there are over 20 million acres nationwide managed under Forest Stewardship plans helping landowners achieve healthy, resilient, and productive forests. In FY22 alone, the program led to the development of almost 11,000 new management plans covering over 1.68 million acres and provided assistance and educational opportunities to over 498,000 landowners.  However, this represents only a fraction of the landowners and acres that could potentially benefit from the technical assistance provided through FSP with an increase in funding.

The organizations that signed this letter, including ESFPA, recommend funding the Forest Stewardship Program for fiscal year 2024 at $22 million. The full document can be found below and was delivered to both the Senate and House Appropriations subcommittees on Monday, April 24th. 

Mature and Old Growth Forests

USDA Forest Service and the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently released a report defining mature and old growth forests on federal forest lands. The definitions of old-growth and mature forests are presented in two forms. Narrative frameworks are descriptive, general definitions of old-growth and mature forests that can be used consistently across geographic scales and forest types. Working definitions provide detailed quantitative criteria, using measurable structural characteristics, that were applied to specific regions and forest types in this national-scale inventory.

Based on these definitions, old-growth forest represents 18 percent and mature forest another 45 percent of all forested land managed by the two agencies. This initial national-scale inventory was conducted by applying the old-growth and mature working definitions to Forest Inventory and Analysis field plot data.

Presidential Executive order 10472 released on 4/22/22 directed the Forest Service and BLM to complete the study within one year.  The Executive order calls particular attention to the importance of old-growth and mature forests on Federal lands for the many benefits they provide, as well as their role in contributing to nature-based climate solutions by storing large amounts of carbon. These forests are also at risk from climate-related stressors and disturbances, potentially requiring climate-informed interventions to reduce these risks. The initial inventory and definitions for old-growth and mature forests are part of an overarching climate-informed strategy to enhance carbon sequestration and address climate related impacts, including insects, disease, wildfire risk, and drought. Initial inventory results will be used to assess threats to these forests, which will allow consideration of appropriate climate informed forest management, as required by subsequent sections of Executive Order 14072.

A number of national associations (as well as ESFPA) have commented on the study and its potential to be used to identify old growth and mature forests on all forest lands.  For the meantime these definitions are limited to federal lands, but already efforts in New York and elsewhere are referencing these definitions.  We will be monitoring for their use on private forest lands.

State Budget Coming Together

Late yesterday the Governor announced that a “conceptual budget” deal had been met. Assembly Speaker Heastie confirmed this in a statement of his own. A month late, the $229 billion budget agreement seems certain to be adopted next week. Here is a link  to a Gothamist Article that provides a good summary. There is not a lot of detail as we go to print but some things we have read and are hearing include the following:

Extended Producer Responsibility

No Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)act in the budget, but we heard that from Senator Peter Harckham’s tweet Monday. Senator Brian Kavanagh on Wednesday also introduced yet another EPR proposal S. 6540. This makes five EPR proposals introduced this session, the Governor’s proposal in her budget (S. 4008/A. 3008), Senator Harckham and Assembly Member Glick’s proposal ((S. 4246/A. 5322), Senator Rachel May’s proposal S. 1064 and Senator Kavanagh’s proposal.  None of these align enough to suggest one could easily negotiate a compromise.

In addition, earlier this week SUNT College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) announced that they had received funding to complete a statewide comprehensive Needs Assessment. The Center for Sustainable Materials Management (CSMM), housed at ESF, began a partnership with Resource Recycling Systems (RRS) to launch the process of conducting a statewide needs assessment and gap analysis for New York’s recycling system.

Given the range of EPR proposals out there and a needs assessment it is unclear if in the remaining 6 weeks we will see EPR adopted.

Cap & Invest

We hear Cap & Invest funding mechanism for climate change did not stay in the Budget. The Governor had her proposal, and the Senate had their proposal and agreement appears to not have been reached. There are several climate related funding proposals introduced including Senator Liz Krueger’s “climate superfund” bill which would attempt to draw $75 billion over the next decade from global oil and gas industries. We can expect more work on these proposals after the budget is completed.

No New Taxes?

On Spectrum News this morning, Assemblymember John MacDonald stated that the “conceptual budget” includes no new taxes. That is hard to believe given the number of taxes that were included in the Assembly and Senate one-house bills and the size of the budget, but we will have to see this in print.

All Electric Buildings

One of the few remaining policy measures in the budget appears to be an All-Electric Buildings Act. The act would prohibit fossil fuels in all new buildings by 2025. All new buildings including <100,000 sq.ft. commercial/industrial by 2025 and >100,000 sg. ft. by 2028 (welcome Micron and new Bills stadium) would have to be built fully electric and without natural gas. It is unclear how existing buildings would be handled but it is clear that one would not have to switch out gas stoves.

Minimum Wage

Increases the minimum wage by fifty cents a year beginning next year until it hits $17 for New York City, Long Island and Westchester. For areas north of Westchester County, where the minimum wage is currently $14.20, it will bump up by eighty cents next year, then fifty cents a year until it hits $16. Then tied to inflation and CPI.

What Next?

Budget and legislative staff are frantically drafting budget bills including appropriation bills that will spell out how the record $229 billion budget will be allocated. We expect to see bills introduced by Sunday or Monday then a message of necessity by the Governor. Bills could start to be passed by Tuesday or Wednesday if the deal stays together.

Legislators will return to Albany Monday and the frenzy will begin. Progressives in both the Senate and Assembly left Albany on Thursday angered with leadership on minimum wage, charter schools and taxes. They will likely return still angered. Republicans in the minority of both houses are furious with the size of the budget and the lack of transparency in developing it.

As we see budget bills released, we will continue to inform you of what is included. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call or email us.