“Our forests are overgrown and in desperate need of cleanup,”said Rep. Kiley. “A large contributor to this heightened wildfire risk is the buildup of limbs, leaves, shrubs, bushes, and dead wood, otherwise known as biomass. When biomass accumulates in our forests, it creates more fuel for wildfire.”

A large part of wildfire mitigation efforts is cleaning up this biomass, but contractors struggle with disposing of this material because there aren’t enough biomass facilities to bring it to.

To help address the lack of facilities, this legislation provides a tax credit for biomass facility construction and energy production. This will lead to the construction of more biomass facilities, creating more access for contractors to offload this material and lower the costs of wildfire mitigation efforts.

The legislation would also allow those facilities to receive an existing tax credit for energy produced through biomass. Kiley said the proposal is intended to address the accumulation of forest materials, including limbs, leaves, shrubs, bushes and dead wood, which can contribute to wildfire fuel loads.