Header: Header: Header:

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) failed to justify the amount of money it collects from U.S. lumber companies to support an industry marketing campaign, a federal judge ruled.

Resolute Forest Products sued the Department of Agriculture in December 2014, challenging its mandatory assessment on any domestic softwood-lumber manufacturer or foreign importer that ships more than 15 million board feet of lumber per year.

The check-off order was developed by private parties and is overseen by the Department of Agriculture under the Commodity Promotion, Research and Information Act. The program set a threshold amount of lumber produced, after which an assessment of 35 cents per 1,000 board-feet shipped within or imported to the United States is to be collected. The program was expected to generate $12.4 million to $19 million a year.

Resolute filed an administrative protest, which an administrative law judge rejected. So Resolute sued, raising four constitutional challenges to the check-off order and six alleged violations of the Administrative Procedures Act.

The court dismissed all but one of Resolute’s challenges on Sept. 9, 2015, and remanded the remaining APA claim to the Department of Agriculture for a “reasoned and coherent treatment of its decision to select 15mmbf per year as the threshold amount.”

From Courthouse News Service: http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/05/20/lumber-rules-dont-fly-federal-judge-says.htm