Policy

The US government's policy toward residential wood and pellet heating is not uniform.  It is made up of policies and goals of various agencies - EPA, USDA, DOE, and IRS primarily - with funding and direction from the US Congress. EPA's mandate is to reduce wood smoke pollution; USDA's mandate is to support the sustainable use of wood for energy; DOE's mandate is to promote research and development on innovative and automated wood and pellet stove technology.  The IRS implements tax credits for efficient wood and pellet stoves passed by Congress. There is some but not a lot of coordination between agencies.

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There have been champions in Congress who have a vision for more advanced use of wood and pellets to reduce fossil fuel and help their districts have access to affordable heating systems. Democrats tend to be willing to provide more funding for tax credits and incentives for wood and pellet heat. Republicans have tended to be less favorable of renewable energy incentives and of emission regulations. However, exceptions to these generalizations are common.

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AGH believes that the U.S . needs far more federal-level leadership to be proactive in guiding wood and pellet heating forward. Wood stove technology has languished, as have policies to help households switch from wood to pellets. The EPA is still focused on regulating traditional, manually operated stoves rather than getting industry to switch to more automated stoves. In general, the US should integrate wood and pellet heat into renewable energy planning, like many European countries do, so that it can best complement other renewables.

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States have more nuanced policies toward wood and pellet heating and they put pressure on the EPA, sometimes through lawsuits, to take more aggressive action.  Other states have called on the EPA to do less and have more lenient emission rules.  New England states have been very supportive of expanding the deployment of pellet boilers and pellet stoves, along with wood chip and pellet boilers in institutions and businesses. In many counties and cities in the Pacific coastal states where wood smoke is a problem because of weather inversions, there are a variety of efforts to reduce the number of wood stoves and prevent more from being installed. Read more about state policies on our States & Change-outs page.