“The EUDR Must Go”: Rep. Austin Scott Joins FLA in Calling Out Unworkable EU Regulation
The Forest Landowners Association (FLA) criticizes the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), a policy that—despite its stated environmental objectives—would impose sweeping, unworkable requirements on U.S. forest landowners and jeopardize market access for sustainably produced American wood products.
For private forest landowners, the delay in implementation is not just a bureaucratic footnote; it is an acknowledgment of the regulation’s fundamental flaws. The EUDR’s paperwork-heavy compliance, unrealistic traceability mandates, and disregard for the structure of U.S. private property rights make it impossible to implement without significant economic harm. American landowners already manage forests sustainably, replant aggressively, and operate under some of the most rigorous environmental protections in the world. The EUDR would punish that stewardship, not enhance it.
Representative Austin Scott: “The EUDR needs to go.”
This week, U.S. Representative Austin Scott underscored this point in a video message shared on Facebook, highlighting the EUDR’s direct threat to American timber markets and the families who rely on them. In the video, Rep. Scott calls the regulation “fundamentally unworkable” and urges policymakers to move beyond delays and toward full rejection of the current rule.
Scott emphasized that the U.S. forest sector already delivers sustainable, renewable products through well-established practices that keep forests healthy, productive, and privately owned. Imposing costly and duplicative foreign compliance rules on landowners—many of whom operate small family forests—would create a chilling effect on wood markets, reduce active management, and ultimately harm the very environmental outcomes the EU claims to protect.
“American forest landowners aren’t the problem,” Scott said. “They are the solution.”
FLA applauds Rep. Scott for raising this important issue with President Trump and encourages all Members of Congress to push against EUDR.
The Path Forward: A Unified U.S. Response
Rep. Scott’s message reinforces what landowners across the country already know: delaying the implementation of EUDR is not enough. The regulation must be reevaluated—or scrapped entirely—so that global trade supports, rather than harms, the backbone of America’s forest economy: private forest landowners.
FLA will continue leading the charge in Washington, D.C., ensuring that U.S. forest landowners have a strong voice in shaping international trade policy. We remain committed to protecting market access, private property rights, and the future of America’s working forests.
How Forest Landowners Can Help
FLA encourages its members to contact their Members of Congress and share Rep. Scott’s message, urging them to stand with America’s private forest landowners. Our forests are sustainably managed under some of the world’s strongest environmental standards, and additional layers of burdensome, unnecessary regulation only undermine that stewardship. Policies that penalize landowners who already follow best management practices do nothing to protect forests—they simply infringe on private property rights and threaten the economic viability of working forests in the United States.