Mass timber will become the preferred structural material in federal buildings in the United States if a new bill is passed.

Introduced into the US Senate last week, the Mass Timber Federal Buildings Act is a bi-partisan bill which is sponsored by Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat senator from Oregon and Senator James Risch, a Republican Senator from Idaho.

The Bill aims to create an incentive to support uptake of mass timber construction in the United States by introducing a preference for mass timber buildings that would be applied to all federal public buildings.

Specifically, the Bill would create a two-tier contracting preference for mass timber.

The first tier will involve mass timber that is preferenced on a mandatory basis.

This will apply to product that is made within the United States and is responsibly sourced from state, federal, private and tribal forest.

By contrast, products from within a second tier may be preferenced on an optional basis.

This applies to mass timber products that are sourced from restoration practices, fire mitigation projects, and/or underserved forest owners.

The Bill will apply to all buildings which are considered to be ‘public buildings’ under the United States Code.

That essentially means any buildings which are constructed for use by federal government departments or agencies.

It includes federal office buildings, post offices, customhouses, court houses, warehouses, border inspection facilities and several other types of buildings.

In addition to the incentives, the Bill will also require the Administrator of General Services to conduct a ‘cradle to gate’ whole building lifecycle assessment that will assess the potential aggregate benefits of using mass timber construction on public buildings from a viewpoint of greenhouse gas emissions.

This, the Bill’s supporters argue, will help to provide additional evidence of the carbon sequestration benefits of mass timber buildings.

The Bill did not provide any details on how the preference would work. Nor did it state how a preference for mass timber will be balanced against considerations regarding structural performance, costs or other matters relating to building design.

Not surprisingly, the Bill has the support of numerous timber and forestry industry bodies.

Jacon Morill, President and CEO of American Wood Council welcomed the Bill.

“It’s abundantly clear that mass timber and wood construction are right-now climate solutions that also support and grow our rural communities,” Morill said.

“The Mass Timber Federal Buildings Act marks a significant step toward ensuring that the federal government – our nation’s single biggest developer – utilizes these products to reduce the significant carbon emissions from the built environment in this country.

“The United States is global leader when it comes to managing our forests and the ecosystems, wildlife, and communities that depend on them. This language will ensure that these emerging markets are supported by American manufacturing and sustainably sourced American wood products.”

The latest move comes amid growing momentum in the use of mass timber products such as Cross Laminated Timber around much of the world.

In a worldwide audit conducted in February 2022, the Council on Tall Building and Urban Habitat found that there were 139 mass timber buildings of eight storeys or higher that were either complete, under construction or proposed.

Proponents of mass timber construction argue that buildings constructed of mass timber offer a lower carbon footprint compared with concrete and steel and may act as a source of carbon sequestration.

However, others say that the situation is not that simple.

A recent analysis by the World Resources Institute argued that use of wood to replace and concrete and steel would have lower emissions under certain conditions but stressed that these conditions would be difficult to achieve.

Moreover, there analysis raised concerns that current plantation supply will already be stretched to meet other growing demands for wood.

As a result, it said that supplying large quantities of wood for construction would require a large increase in wood harvesting that would have significant impacts on the world’s forests as well as other land uses.

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