From the Director’s Desk: A Look at August Pellet Data, Energy Choice Act Passes Committee on 24-21 Vote
A Look at August Pellet Data
August Data (5-year average) in tons:
East
Sales – 106,576 (119,324)
Production – 88,361 (103,075)
Inventory – 164,074 (143,334)
West
Sales – 23,807 (35,398)
Production – 23,109 (38,821)
Inventory – 127,464 (76,273)
South
Sales – 18,794 (33,601)
Production – 24,040 (22,709)
Inventory – 23,060 (44,434)
All U.S.
Sales – 149,177 (191,416)
Production – 135,510 (164,605)
Inventory – 314,598 (264,041)
Through eight months, 2025 sales are lagging prior-year sales by less than 20,000 tons, and the table appears to be set for a strong finish based on the accumulated Heating Degree Days thus far. For producers to post a stronger year than last, they’ll need to move about 650,000 tons of product from September-December. As of December 7, Heating Degree Days were ahead of last year’s pace in all but three locations (Rapid City, Lewiston, and Spokane), and those are all just behind last year’s pace. Buffalo and Harrisburg are significantly ahead of last year’s pace (25%), and those colder temps will result in greater pellet usage and sales. I suspect the impact will show up in the November and December data.
In the last four months of 2024, the East region shipped 378,000 tons of pellets. With Heating Degree Days tracking from 10-25% ahead of last year’s pace, I’m looking for the East to top 400,000 tons of product shipped over the same time frame. The wild card is the West, and producers there are ready for a big winter with inventory levels over 120,000 tons (an all-time high). For now, however, temperatures are mild, and as one Western producer member remarked to me, “stoves are on, but they are on low.”
Energy Choice Act Passes Committee on 24-21 Vote
On Wednesday, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce passed the Energy Choice Act (H.R. 3699), sending it to the House floor for further debate and eventually a vote. The legislation passed the committee 24-21, with the votes breaking along party lines as expected. The bulk of the supporting commentary for the bill was offered by its author, Rep. Nick Langworthy (NY-23), who countered Democrats’ claims of federal overreach, insisting that the bill did nothing to inhibit state and local governments’ ability to utilize zoning and permitting measures to ensure the safe deployment of energy infrastructure, instead highlighting that the legislation simply guarded against the prohibition of a particular type of energy. Rep. Langworthy pointed to New York’s All-Electric Buildings Act as the kind of misguided prohibition the legislation was introduced to eliminate. Committee Democrats countered that while Republicans may publicly espouse an “All of the Above” energy strategy, the Trump administration continues to roll back progress on the deployment of renewables. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (TX-2) offered the most memorable sound bite of the morning when he suggested that the legislation offered “rational environmentalism, not radical environmentalism.” The Pellet Fuels Institute continues to track this legislation closely as part of its legislative portfolio aimed at ensuring that wood pellets remain a legal fuel choice for American consumers.
—Tim Portz
Executive Director
