ESFPA E-News

2025 Fall Forestry Roundtable Overview

The 2025 ESFPA/Adirondack Research Consortium Fall Forestry Roundtable was held yesterday, November 3rd, at SUNY Adirondack. This event brought together leaders from state agencies, academia, and others in the industry for a full day of discussion.

This year's Roundtable featured a series of engaging sessions covering updates on reforestation and the state’s “25 Million Trees” initiative, potential changes to forest tax policy, the climate value of wood products, Cornell’s ForestConnect program, and the growing use of mass timber in construction.

ESFPA and ARC extend our sincere thanks to all speakers, panelists, sponsors, and attendees for their participation. We appreciate everyone who helped make the day possible and contributed to yet another successful year!

China Trade Deal

As we reported yesterday, the White House released a Fact Sheet over the weekend outlining the details of the deal reached between the U.S. and China.  Among the commitments made by China are:

• China will suspend or remove all of the retaliatory non-tariff countermeasures taken against the United States since March 4, 2025, including China’s listing of certain American companies on its end user and unreliable entity lists.
• China will purchase at least 12 million metric tons (MMT) of U.S. soybeans during the last two months of 2025 and also purchase at least 25 MMT of U.S. soybeans in each of 2026, 2027, and 2028.  Additionally, China will resume purchases of U.S. sorghum and hardwood logs.

We are awaiting more details on the agreement. As we learn more we will share. In the meantime, this is good news and hopefully we see market relief soon. 

ESFPA Urges Governor Hochul to Sign Legislation Amending Petroleum Tank Painting Law

ESFPA has submitted a memo urging Governor Kathy Hochul to sign Senate Bill S.1704, legislation that would amend Chapter 505 of the Laws of 2021.

The current law requires all above-ground petroleum bulk storage tanks to be painted white, beige, or cream, a mandate that has created costly and impractical challenges for many facilities. The memo notes that many tanks already use coatings that provide equal or better reflectivity and emissions reduction, and that some are located indoors where the painting requirement serves no environmental purpose.

"We believe that S.1704 provides the correct statutory relief and regulatory discretion to the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) in promulgating regulations that meet the overall intent of this legislation."

Click the link below to read the full memo:

Disruptive Forces Impacting the Forest Industry October 2025

Presenting at the October 2025 FRA Northeast Region Forest Forum, INRS’ Eric Kingsley addressed factors impacting the forest industry, including: tariffs, executive orders, demographics, carbon markets, the emergence of bio-based products, artificial intelligence and remote sensing. 

Click the link below to see the full presentation: