Mass timber has a federal lobby again. Reps. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA) and Andrea Salinas (D-OR) reintroduced the Mass Timber Federal Buildings Act in early June, the third consecutive year a version of the bill has landed in Congress. It would give engineered wood products a formal leg up when the federal government builds, renovates, or buys public buildings, and it folds in military construction too.
The pitch is straightforward. Washington is the country’s largest single builder. Point even a slice of that demand at cross-laminated timber and the domestic wood-products industry gets a buyer it can plan around.
What the timber bill actually does
The bill builds a two-tier preference into federal contracting. The first tier covers mass timber made in the U.S. and responsibly sourced from state, federal, private, and Tribal forestland. The second, optional tier rewards wood that comes out of forest-restoration work and fire-mitigation projects, which ties the construction policy to wildfire policy in a way earlier drafts hinted at but didn’t formalize.
There’s also a reporting hook. Qualifying projects would need a whole-building lifecycle assessment, so the embodied-carbon claims that get made for timber would have to show up as numbers in a federal file rather than marketing copy. That’s the part builders should watch, because it sets a measurement precedent that tends to outlive any single bill.
Why a third attempt, and why now
The honest answer is that the first two attempts went nowhere. Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and James Risch (R-ID) first ran the Senate version in 2024, it came back in 2025, and neither chamber voted on it. Merkley and Risch are leading the companion bill again this session.
What’s changed is the market underneath it. Building codes now allow taller wood structures than they did five years ago, and the embodied-carbon argument has moved from green-building conferences into mainstream owner decisions. Analysts peg the U.S. mass timber market at roughly $390 million in 2025, growing toward $1.07 billion by 2033. A federal procurement preference wouldn’t create that demand, but it would steady it, which is exactly what mills weighing a capital expansion want to see before they commit.
The skeptic’s note: a contracting preference is not a mandate, and lifecycle-assessment paperwork adds friction that small wood suppliers may struggle to clear. Whether the second-tier restoration provision actually moves fire-prone timber into buildings, rather than just sounding good, depends on rules that don’t exist yet.
For builders already pricing timber against steel and concrete, the bill is worth tracking but not worth betting a bid on. Exchange has covered the parallel push on lower-carbon structural materials, from carbon-negative concrete reaching real pours to low-carbon cement plants nearing startup. Timber’s federal play is the same fight from the wood side. Whether it clears a floor vote this time is the open question. The two prior tries say don’t hold your breath.