Lumber stacked for milling in northern Wisconsin. Lawmakers are proposing state support for a plant that would turn wood debris into aviation fuel. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Lawmakers from northern and northcentral Wisconsin are circulating a bill supporting Johnson Timber Corp. in Hayward to build a processing plant for aviation fuel made from logging debris.

The legislation would reward the company with a $60 million tax credit and access to $150 million in borrowing through Wisconsin’s bonding authority.

Republican lawmakers wrote in a memo circulated Monday seeking cosponsors that the proposal would create 150 jobs and generate $1.2 billion a year in income after three years of operation.

The processing plant in Hayward would be built by Johnson Timber Corp., in partnership with a German company, Sen. Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, said at a news conference Monday in the state Capitol. The German partner is Synthec Fuels, according to Felzkowski’s office.

Wisconsin, along with Michigan and Minnesota, are all vying for the project, Felzkowski said, “and the state that helps will be the first state” to get the facility and probably the headquarters for the overall processing operation.

She said the process of converting logging waste into aviation fuel was comparable to how corn is grown for and converted into ethanol.

“We will be taking that wood product and turning it into a carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation,” Felzkowski said.

As drafted, the bill would authorize the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. to create a manufacturing zone for aviation biofuel derived from wood matter and to issue up to $60 million in tax credits for a business operating in the zone.

The bill requires the business to source 80% or more of the wood used from Wisconsin and invest at least $1.5 billion in the project.

The bill also provides for the business to borrow up to $150 million for the project using Wisconsin’s tax-free bonding authority.

At the news conference, lawmakers, Sawyer County officials and a timber industry representative billed legislation as a “forestry revitalization” measure.

Paper and pulp plants in Wisconsin Rapids, Park Falls and Duluth, Minnesota, have all gone out of business in the past five years, accounting for about 30% of the pulp produced by Wisconsin’s timber industry, said Henry Sheinebeck, executive director of the Rhinelander-based Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association.

“We’re growing at a minimum two times more (timber) than we’re harvesting,” Sheinebeck said. Enabling the timber industry to cut down and make use of more trees would preserve and improve the health of forests in the state, he said.

The association and the paper industry are the joint recipients of an unrelated $1 million grant in the state 2025-27 budget to draw up a statewide forestry industry strategic plan.

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