The impacts of severe winter weather in much of the Southcentral Region, along with tornado damage in North Carolina, have presented significant challenges for many of our members over the last few weeks. Please know that our thoughts and support are with you for a speedy recovery process. 

 

As of February 15, loan approvals under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) totaled $125.8 billion. This brings the total amount of all approved PPP lending to nearly $650 billion under the three separate rounds of PPP funding made available through the three COVID-19 relief acts.

Committees in the House of Representatives met this week to report out provisions of COVID relief legislation that falls within their jurisdictions. A notable piece that was advanced was an increase in the federal minimum wage, which was part of the House Education and Labor Committee’s bill. Specifically, the legislation gradually elevates the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025.

The federal stimulus passed in December 2020 contains a reboot and expansion of the popular Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The legislation allocates $284 billion to this forgivable loan program, with some changes to how the program is administered for second-time applicants. The deadline to apply for PPP loans is March 31, 2021.

The Timber Harvesting and Transportation Safety (THATS) Foundation has partnered with Safety Meeting App to provide FRA members with a convenient mobile safety resource: the THATS Safety Meeting App.

As we have highlighted in previous Issue Updates, the Biden-Harris Administration has been rolling out Executive Orders (EO) and directives at a fast and furious clip, on issues that traverse the spectrum from access to health care, to immigration, to the environment. 

On Wednesday, the Biden Administration announced that in the coming months, they would be reviewing many regulatory changes made by the Trump Administration. Several of these proposed reviews are likely rollbacks to the Trump Administration’s actions that will impact the forest products sector.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) began accepting second draw Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans that were made available January 13. The second draw loans can be used to fund payroll costs, including benefits.

From January 1-3, 2021, the Department of Labor (DOL) received a total of 5,377 H-2B applications requesting more than 96,500 worker positions. The number of workers requested is nearly three times more than the 33,000 mandated cap for the second half of fiscal year 2021.

Today we want to inform you of two important issue updates. First, highlights of the Fiscal Year 2021 omnibus appropriations package and Covid-19 relief bill, which was unveiled earlier this afternoon. The bill is 5,593 pages, and we are still reviewing, but we wanted to provide FRA Members with a “hot off the presses” quick snapshot of key provisions in the bill that are pertinent to our sector.