Lawmakers Call for Altering 'Unworkable' EU Deforestation Regulation
Arkansas’ six-member congressional delegation urged the EU March 14 to revise its proposed deforestation reporting requirements (see 2412060050), saying they would unfairly burden U.S. exporters with technical barriers to trade.
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“This regulation is unworkable for the forest products industry in the United States and would jeopardize more than $3.5 billion worth of paper and wood products shipping into the EU market for essential products like timber or pulp for baby diapers,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the European Commission.
The letter says the U.S. “is not a source of the EU’s deforestation concerns,” and it calls for making the regulation’s geolocation traceability requirements more proportional to the risk. “The geospatial coordinate mapping requirement for every individual plot of land should be removed for supply chains that have already achieved deforestation risk status as low risk, negligible, or insignificant,” the letter says. “Secondary materials should be exempt from geolocation because traceability is virtually impossible.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has also raised concerns about the regulation (see 2502050048), and the letter warns that the Trump administration could take action against the EU if the regulation is not changed. “Unless these key problems are addressed, I am extremely concerned that the EU may lose their trading relationship with the U.S. forest products industry, which they rely upon every day,” the letter says.
The letter was led by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and co-signed by Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., and Reps. Rich Crawford, R-Ark., French Hill, R-Ark., Steve Womack, R-Ark., and Bruce Westerman, R-Ark.
The European Commission had no immediate comment on the letter.