ESFPA E-News

Jennifer DeFrancesco Receives NELA's Outstanding Leadership in Industry Award

On Friday, the Northeastern Loggers' Association (NELA) held their annual awards celebration at the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction, Vermont, as part of the Loggers' Expo. At the celebration, Jennifer DeFrancesco of B&B Forest Products Inc., and Immediate Past Chair of ESFPA, was presented the 2025 Outstanding Leadership in Industry Award.

Jennifer exemplifies the highest standards of leadership, service, and commitment to the advancement of our industry. Throughout her career, she has consistently demonstrated the ability to provide clear guidance and thoughtful direction, not only through the effective operation of her business endeavors, but also through her extensive involvement in industry associations and leadership roles.

Congratulations, Jennifer!!

More State Budget Extenders

The State Legislature returned to Albany today and is set to pass budget extenders to the end of the week. Although prognosticators feel that leadership is very close to settling differences on key policy issues holding up the budget and that by the end of the week, we may see budget bills start to be prepared for passage. Either way, we only have 5 weeks, or 19 more scheduled days of Session left. Late last week Assembly Speaker Heastie said the Assembly was scheduled to end June 4^th and he was sticking to that. His members have primaries and business in the district to deal with, and he plans to leave Albany on time. That said, the Legislature has been known to do a lot of bill passage in a week, so a lot of damage can yet be done.

We are beginning to see a lot of bills moving on the calendar, and within a week or two we will see Committees shut down. Everything will start to go through major committees of Rules and Ways & Means and a lot of "off the Floor" activity. Things will move fast and furious as we near the end. This is when kayos can be friend or foe. Please keep an eye out for last minute Action Alerts as we sometimes need fast turnaround on some action. 

EPR Bill Amended & on Senate EnCon Agenda

Senate Bill S. 1464-A "Packaging Reduction & Recycling Act" (also A. 1749-A) has been amended and is on the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee agenda tomorrow. While the bill continues to exempt non-packaging paper, it still has not addressed any number of provisions that industry stakeholders have had for years and that if non-packaging paper were added back in, we too would have significant concerns with. Here is a memo prepared by the Business Council of New York that outlines concerns that industry stakeholders still have.

More importantly, this round of amendments adds "commercial" packaging and "tertiary" packaging to the legislation which would include pallets and packaging used in the transport of materials between businesses. These types of packaging have never been included in this legislation and now add hundreds of businesses and types of packaging that have never been contemplated. This would be all pallets used to ship goods both to retailer and to/from manufacturers. It also in our sector would include things such as the plastic wrap used on bundles of lumber and the metal/plastic strapping used in shipping lumber. These were never covered products in earlier versions of the legislation.

We have taken strong exception to this last-minute add to this legislation and are gathering opposition to this. Please watch for future Action Alerts on this.

Farm Bill Passes the House

On April 30, the House of Representatives passed the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 by a vote of 224–200. The bill advanced out of the House Agriculture Committee in March with bipartisan support and was later amended on the House floor. Notably, lawmakers removed a controversial pesticide labeling provision that counties have raised concerns about and adopted an amendment to allow rotisserie chicken purchases under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The bill also did not include provisions for dealing with the Renewable Fuel Standard and E15 and Woody Biomass feedstocks.

The Farm Bill has the largest funding and programming for conservation and state and private forestry from the federal government. The House proposal included several provisions that ESFPA did support including:

• Reauthorizes and updates the Conservation Reserve Program
• Enhances working lands conservation programs including the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program
• Establishes the Forest Conservation Easement Program while repealing the Healthy Forests Reserve Program
• Authorizes and expands the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program
• Streamlines administration for conservation technical assistance and resource programs including the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Farm Service Administration (FSA)
• Reauthorizes and invests in key rural workforce and development programs
• Allows Farm Credit institutions to partner with community banks and other lenders in financing essential community facilities in rural areas
• Increases access to the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) by increasing the maximum loan guarantee to $50,000,000 and requiring USDA to consider the economic impacts of a project in application scoring
• Authorizes a joint USDA/Department of Energy study on the effects of solar panel installations on U.S. farmland and private forestland, in consultation with counties and other stakeholders
• Reauthorizes the Biomass Crop Assistance Program through 2031

The bill did take measures to curtail state ability to regulate pesticide usage and application. This raises some concern in New York where for years we have had New York Pesticide regulations that in many ways have worked well for us. It's not clear how this would affect our Pesticide program.

The Farm Bill now moves to the Senate as lawmakers still have a long road ahead before the bill can be passed into law. Several obstacles may continue to impede progress toward agreement on a bipartisan 2026 Farm Bill, including slim margins of control in the Senate, ongoing partisan disagreement over farm bill provisions included in H.R.1, the reconciliation package passed into law in 2025, political pressures related to the 2026 midterm election cycle, which is projected to dampen legislative activity over the summer, and the impending expiration of the 2018 Farm Bill on September 30, 2026. 

Latest on EUDR

The National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO) shared the following with us earlier today on the European Deforestation Rule.  We will report more as we learn more.

Today, the Commission published its long-awaited EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) simplification package. Bottom line: As expected, the Commission held firm that it is not reopening the law, instead proposing tweaks via implementing legislation and updates to the FAQs and Guidance documents. Compliance requirements for NAFO members remain unchanged. NAFO continues to call for EUDR enforcement to be postponed for forest products from low-risk countries until the Commission can conduct an impact assessment to fully understand unintended consequences of the Regulation.

Key takeaways

• The announcement includes no meaningful simplification for forest owners in the U.S. (or anywhere outside the EU). - The Commission claims to have reduced compliance costs by 75%, but this figure does not appear to take into account upstream operators (like NAFO members), who are not directly responsible for compliance (like submitting due diligence statements).
• EU forest owners, by contrast, benefit from additional simplifications due to several additions to the EUDR FAQs. For example, forest cooperatives or associations can submit joint declarations on behalf of members. Today’s announcement could divide EU sector partners who benefit from simplified compliance, and forest sector partners from low-risk third countries who have gotten no reduction in compliance requirements.
• The Commission expanded language on forest degradation in the FAQs to clarify that certain “plantation forests” do not trigger degradation, providing helpful guidance for U.S. forest owners.
• We are monitoring for initial reactions from the European Council and Parliament. The Commission’s proposals are also likely to further exacerbate EU-U.S. trade tensions. The Trump administration has forcefully advocated for EUDR exemptions for U.S. operators.