SAWMILL Act Offers $220M in Loan Guarantees to Rural Sawmills to Cut Forest Cleanup Costs

The Supporting American Wood and Mill Infrastructure with Loans for Longevity Act—the SAWMILL Act—is setting up a brand-new program to inject cash into rural wood processing facilities. Essentially, this bill creates the Timber Production Expansion Guaranteed Loan Program, run by the Department of Agriculture, which is authorized to guarantee up to $220 million in loans for eligible sawmills and wood-processing plants.

The Trade-Off: Infrastructure for Ecological Restoration

This isn't just a handout to the timber industry; it’s a strategic investment tied directly to forest health. The loan guarantees are specifically designed to help facilities start, reopen, upgrade, or expand, provided they are located in a rural area and are within 250 miles of designated “eligible Federal land.” That federal land is defined as areas the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior identify as high or very high priority for ecological restoration, which often means thinning out trees and removing vegetation to reduce wildfire risk.

For a sawmill owner, the pitch is clear: the government will back your loan if your expansion helps the feds save money. The key condition for getting a guarantee is that the facility's presence must "significantly lower the cost" of doing that cleanup work on the nearby federal land. Think of it like this: if a local mill can process the timber and biomass removed from a high-risk forest, the government doesn't have to haul it hundreds of miles away, dramatically reducing the expense of the restoration project itself. This provision links rural economic development directly to vital public safety and environmental goals.

Who Benefits and What’s the Catch?

The immediate winners are the owners and operators of wood processing facilities in rural areas, especially those near national forests or other federal lands needing thinning. For these rural communities, this program could mean new jobs and the reopening of mills that closed years ago, revitalizing local economies that rely on natural resource processing. It also benefits the federal agencies, which get a potentially cheaper way to manage forests and mitigate massive wildfire risks—a win for everyone who breathes air or lives near a forest.

However, the bill does rely heavily on administrative discretion. The Secretaries have to decide which federal lands are “high priority” and whether a mill’s expansion “will significantly lower the cost” of restoration. That’s a lot of power in determining who gets a piece of the $220 million pie. While the intent is clearly positive—supporting infrastructure and forest health simultaneously—the subjectivity in those criteria means the application process will be critical. If you’re a taxpayer, the only risk here is the standard liability that comes with any federal loan guarantee program, though the focus on facilities that reduce government costs helps mitigate that risk by tying the investment to a demonstrable return.