(The Center Square) – A group of Wisconsin legislators including Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, are proposing to send $60 million in enterprise tax credits and use the state forestry account to back $150 million in bonds toward building a new $1.9 billion pulpwood facility in Hayward.
The plant work take “low-quality wood and turn it into aviation fuel,” in what is called CORSIA fuel, Felzkowski explained.
The plant would be operated by a German company that has been working with Johnson Timber on the project. The company is also looking at factories in Minnesota and Michigan.
“The state that helps will be the first state there,” Felzkowski said. “There is a little bit of pressure to be state that helps, so that they will have the first plant and hopefully the headquarters.”
U.S. regulations do not require the pulpwood aviation fuel, which Felzkowski said is “like turning corn into ethanol” but Europe does require a mix of the fuel so the market is increasing.
The European Union will require 2% blends of the fuel by 2025, or 1.2 million tons, and 20% by 2035, or 13.6 million tons.
The project involves 20-year bonds.
Felzkowski said that the bill is just being introduced, so Gov. Tony Evers has not committed to signing the bill before reading it, but “he seems very interested in it.”
The bill will be called the Forestry Revitalization Act.
The plant is expected to employ 150 with the 20-year bonds paid by the forestry account, which has increased $12-14 million each year, Felzkowski said.
Felzkowski said there are clawbacks on the incentives if the project does not go through as planned.
“We don’t want the taxpayers to suffer on this,” she said.
The company has agreed that 80% of the wood used at the plant will come from Wisconsin and that Wisconsin contractors will be preferred on the project.
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Henry Schienenbeck, Executive Director of the The Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association, said that Wisconsin has plenty of wood to support the project.
“We have some of the most well-maintained sustainable forests in the nation,” Schienenbeck said. “It’s our mission to make sure that we don’t ever run out of trees.”
