Inside The Effort To Help Save The U.S. Hardwood Lumber Industry
Government & Public Affairs Overview
How the NHLA Crossroads Strategies Task Force, Crossroads Strategies, and Seven Letter are Working with Washington
By Will Courtney, Executive Vice President Crossroads Strategies
The U.S. hardwood lumber industry has spent 20 years losing ground, but its future is not yet written: the next five years offer a narrow and consequential window to reverse course. Stakeholders may disagree about what brought the industry to this point and what must come next, but few dispute the stakes—or the urgency of changing course.
According to a 2025 economic impact analysis conducted by market intelligence firm S&P Global for the Hardwood Federation, the U.S. hardwood industry lost approximately 40,000 jobs between 2022 and 2024, while domestic hardwood lumber production fell 29 percent, a decline driven in part by sawmill closures.
Two forces are driving the collapse. First, whole logs are leaving the country unprocessed and are being shipped to mills in China and Vietnam. This American-grown lumber sawn overseas is sold back into the global market. Second, the domestic market has been flooded with wood-look substitutes that unfairly compete in categories where real hardwood was once the standard, including flooring, furniture, and decking. For the mills owned and operated by families at the heart of the industry, the current decline is more than another turn in the business cycle. It raises a more consequential question: How many of these businesses, and how much of the industry they sustain, will remain a decade from now?
There are no certain answers. But there are promising paths forward, and the National Hardwood Lumber Association (NHLA) is actively advancing them in Washington. The NHLA has charged the Crossroads Strategies Task Force with one mission: to use every available tool to rebuild demand for American-grown, American-milled hardwood, and to do so before more mills close.
NHLA formed this task force by pulling together board members, mill owners, and association staff. Their job has been to define the problem in hard numbers and to turn that data into a policy roadmap. That roadmap covers everything from trade enforcement at U.S. ports to federal procurement rules that determine what kind of wood the government buys. But defining the problem is only half the job. Translating it into action in Washington requires outside expertise, which is why NHLA brought in Crossroads Strategies and Seven Letter to lead government affairs and strategic communications.
Crossroads Strategies (CRS) is a bipartisan lobbying and consulting firm founded in 2010. Its team includes former Members of Congress, congressional staff, agency officials, and policy specialists with experience navigating Capitol Hill and the federal agencies responsible for trade, procurement, national security, and forestry. Using the task force’s research, CRS has identified concrete policy solutions and developed a coordinated federal approach to the industry’s challenges.
Supporting that work is Seven Letter, a bipartisan strategic communications firm founded in 2006. Its staff includes former senior congressional advisors, communications aides, and journalists from CNN, Axios, and the Associated Press. Seven Letter draws on that combination of political and newsroom experience to help complex issues gain attention and credibility, building on work for clients such as Ford Motor Company, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Airlines for America.
Together, each is carrying NHLA’s case to the federal agencies and policymakers positioned to act on it.
The government affairs plan and scope of work include engagements with federal agencies such as the Department of War (DOW), the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the Department of Commerce (DOC), the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), along with targeted outreach to members of Congress who represent timber country. Their job is not just to ask for favors. It is to make the case that hardwood is a national security component, a rural jobs issue, a health issue, and a trade fairness issue.
The government relations strategy CRS has built for NHLA operates across several policy fronts. On trade, it pushes for investigations into unfair pricing, subsidization, and transshipment loopholes. On procurement, it argues that federal agencies, from the General Services Administration (GSA) to the DOW, should give preference to solid American hardwood in furniture, pallets, and decking. On enforcement, it calls for stronger oversight at the border to ensure that wood-look products are clearly identified and that synthetic materials cannot be marketed as real wood. From a national security perspective, the strategy warns that the industry’s continued decline could eventually force the United States to purchase railroad ties from China or other foreign rivals. None of these solutions requires new spending or new laws to begin. Most can start with a directive from an agency or the White House.
Without a compelling public narrative, even the strongest government relations strategy is left lobbying in the dark. Meetings on Capitol Hill and inside federal agencies land differently when the policy goals are backed by news coverage. That is why the task force has enlisted Seven Letter to run a public affairs campaign built to earn media coverage. Those stories are designed to reinforce lobbying efforts and to give policymakers the public cover to do so.
This initiative’s main goal is to ensure that the policymakers who matter, both in Congress and across federal agencies, understand the severity of the industry’s crisis. That requires reaching the commentators and media outlets that command the current administration’s attention. Earned media coverage does not pass legislation or sign an executive order, but it builds the public and political conditions that make those actions easier for decision-makers to justify.
No advocacy effort can guarantee a particular policy outcome. But this initiative combines the task force’s research, Crossroads Strategies’ experience navigating Congress and federal agencies, and Seven Letter’s communications expertise to make a clear, consistent case for American hardwood to policymakers and the public.
For an industry made up of family businesses, that voice may be the difference between a turnaround and a slow disappearance.
For industry stakeholders and anyone else who relies on a productive hardwood industry for their living: The invitation to join this effort is evergreen. The Crossroads Strategies Task Force is independently funded outside of NHLA dues, and it is designed to be a big-tent effort. Competition may determine who wins the next sale; cooperation may determine whether there is a market for the sale after that. To join the effort by contributing to the task force, please get in touch with Dallin Brooks, Executive Director of the NHLA, at dallin@nhla.com.
