Why Knot Tell The Government To Use More Wood
The U.S. hardwood sawmill decline parallels the earlier U.S. steel mills decline. Learning from their recovery, we can expedite our own. Steel shifted toward highly automated mills that require less labor and can operate at smaller, more flexible scales. They also pursued federal trade policy by reducing the share of imports in U.S. steel consumption, helping domestic mills raise utilization rates and stabilize prices. The federal government also framed steel capacity as a national security asset, linking domestic production to the needs of the defense industrial base, critical infrastructure, and energy transition projects. This framing helped justify tariffs and made it easier to defend against substitute products.
The NHLA Board of Directors voted unanimously in April to engage Crossroads Strategies to help build domestic demand for U.S.-grown, harvested, sawn, milled, and manufactured hardwoods. Crossroads Strategies is a bipartisan federal advocacy and government relations firm based in Washington, D.C., specializing in congressional engagement, agency relations, and strategic policy development. With deep relationships across federal agencies and lawmakers, the firm helps industries navigate policy, influence procurement decisions, and position issues within national priorities.
By bringing in this level of federal expertise, NHLA is positioning hardwood not just as a material—but as a strategic asset within national policy conversations.
The effort will focus on federal agencies—including the Department of Defense, GSA, DOE, DOT, and the White House—to initiate a supply chain review of hardwood lumber and its implications for national infrastructure security. By getting hardwoods on the radar in supply chain and national security discussions, we have a real opportunity to address key industry challenges, such as substitute products, domestic demand, and rural manufacturing.
For the Department of Defense, they need to understand that they use hardwood pallets, crates, and shipping apparatuses to mobilize defense components; without a domestic hardwood industry, DOD either buys from overseas or cannot ship the defense components required for mobilization. The same goes for railroad ties: building and maintaining railroad infrastructure requires the logs to be cut domestically so the center of the hardwood log can have a box heart tie, which is a foundational defense and logistics dependency we can’t live without. Similarly, crane matting and board roads for building and maintaining transmission and oil infrastructure also require hardwood trees to ensure access to sensitive areas with temporary timber mats that can be quickly erected.
As such, the NHLA is pursuing a National Security Memorandum from the Secretary of Defense directing an assessment of vulnerabilities in the hardwood lumber supply chain. Along with a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) rider directing DOD to assess domestic hardwood supply chain vulnerabilities for military base construction, furniture, flooring, crating, and matting—and to establish mandatory minimum domestic source requirements for DOD procurement.
Simply put, we need a mandate that U.S. military trailers, crates, pallets, and shipping infrastructure use exclusively U.S.-grown and manufactured hardwood products. Why should it be anything else?
The NHLA will also work with the Administration and Congress to require the General Services Administration to purchase hardwood furniture, floors, and cabinets grown, sawn, manufactured, and built in the United States. We must require a percentage of domestic hardwoods in the construction and renovation of all federal buildings and public spaces to grow and stabilize our industry—just as the steel industry required U.S. steel for infrastructure. We will also pursue a Presidential Memorandum expanding Buy American requirements to cover all federal procurement of hardwood products, furniture, and construction materials.
The NHLA will also work with DOE to explore mandating or incentivizing U.S. hardwood crane mats in oil and gas exploration, pushing back against synthetic and composite substitutes that have taken market share. The same applies to transmission lines and other construction that rely on hardwood crane mats and board roads for access and stability. Maintaining these markets ensures lower-grade hardwood continues to have value domestically rather than being exported at a loss.
This is just a sample of the opportunities the NHLA is pursuing to grow and stabilize the domestic hardwood market by increasing government use of hardwood in both infrastructure and appearance applications. Expanding that use supports healthier national forests, strengthens jobs in rural communities, and improves outcomes in the built environment.
The U.S. steel industry has restructured into a smaller, more efficient, and more stable sector supported by targeted government policy, investment in new technology, and demand from infrastructure and manufacturing projects. If we do the same, hardwood mills can operate profitably without destabilizing cycles of overproduction and decline.
The NHLA is taking steps on both fronts—supporting mill optimization while building federal demand—because the future of the industry depends on both.
So the question remains: why knot tell the government to use more wood?
The U.S. hardwood sawmill decline parallels the earlier U.S. steel mills decline. Learning from their recovery, we can expedite our own. Steel shifted toward highly automated mills that require less labor and can operate at smaller, more flexible scales. They also pursued federal trade policy by reducing the share of imports in U.S. steel consumption, helping domestic mills raise utilization rates and stabilize prices. The federal government also framed steel capacity as a national security asset, linking domestic production to the needs of the defense industrial base, critical infrastructure, and energy transition projects. This framing helped justify tariffs and made it easier to defend against substitute products.
The NHLA Board of Directors voted unanimously in April to engage Crossroads Strategies to help build domestic demand for U.S.-grown, harvested, sawn, milled, and manufactured hardwoods. Crossroads Strategies is a bipartisan federal advocacy and government relations firm based in Washington, D.C., specializing in congressional engagement, agency relations, and strategic policy development. With deep relationships across federal agencies and lawmakers, the firm helps industries navigate policy, influence procurement decisions, and position issues within national priorities.
By bringing in this level of federal expertise, NHLA is positioning hardwood not just as a material—but as a strategic asset within national policy conversations.
The effort will focus on federal agencies—including the Department of Defense, GSA, DOE, DOT, and the White House—to initiate a supply chain review of hardwood lumber and its implications for national infrastructure security. By getting hardwoods on the radar in supply chain and national security discussions, we have a real opportunity to address key industry challenges, such as substitute products, domestic demand, and rural manufacturing.
For the Department of Defense, they need to understand that they use hardwood pallets, crates, and shipping apparatuses to mobilize defense components; without a domestic hardwood industry, DOD either buys from overseas or cannot ship the defense components required for mobilization. The same goes for railroad ties: building and maintaining railroad infrastructure requires the logs to be cut domestically so the center of the hardwood log can have a box heart tie, which is a foundational defense and logistics dependency we can’t live without. Similarly, crane matting and board roads for building and maintaining transmission and oil infrastructure also require hardwood trees to ensure access to sensitive areas with temporary timber mats that can be quickly erected.
As such, the NHLA is pursuing a National Security Memorandum from the Secretary of Defense directing an assessment of vulnerabilities in the hardwood lumber supply chain. Along with a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) rider directing DOD to assess domestic hardwood supply chain vulnerabilities for military base construction, furniture, flooring, crating, and matting—and to establish mandatory minimum domestic source requirements for DOD procurement.
Simply put, we need a mandate that U.S. military trailers, crates, pallets, and shipping infrastructure use exclusively U.S.-grown and manufactured hardwood products.
Why should it be anything else?
The NHLA will also work with the Administration and Congress to require the General Services Administration to purchase hardwood furniture, floors, and cabinets grown, sawn, manufactured, and built in the United States. We must require a percentage of domestic hardwoods in the construction and renovation of all federal buildings and public spaces to grow and stabilize our industry—just as the steel industry required U.S. steel for infrastructure. We will also pursue a Presidential Memorandum expanding Buy American requirements to cover all federal procurement of hardwood products, furniture, and construction materials.
The NHLA will also work with DOE to explore mandating or incentivizing U.S. hardwood crane mats in oil and gas exploration, pushing back against synthetic and composite substitutes that have taken market share. The same applies to transmission lines and other construction that rely on hardwood crane mats and board roads for access and stability. Maintaining these markets ensures lower-grade hardwood continues to have value domestically rather than being exported at a loss.
This is just a sample of the opportunities the NHLA is pursuing to grow and stabilize the domestic hardwood market by increasing government use of hardwood in both infrastructure and appearance applications. Expanding that use supports healthier national forests, strengthens jobs in rural communities, and improves outcomes in the built environment.
The U.S. steel industry has restructured into a smaller, more efficient, and more stable sector supported by targeted government policy, investment in new technology, and demand from infrastructure and manufacturing projects. If we do the same, hardwood mills can operate profitably without destabilizing cycles of overproduction and decline.
The NHLA is taking steps on both fronts—supporting mill optimization while building federal demand—because the future of the industry depends on both.
So the question remains: why knot tell the government to use more wood? nhla.com
