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Woody biomass from forest management is a renewable, low-carbon feedstock that can substitute for fossil fuels in the production of energy and other products — a potentially important tool in the national strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and resist global climate change. Markets for logging residues, small diameter trees, and other low-value forest products can add value to working forests, help provide financial alternatives to land clearing and development, and create incentives for investing in sustainable forest management. Forest thinning and removal of small-diameter, low value trees are integral parts of forest management for a number of values and objectives — biodiversity conservation, ecological restoration, wildfire prevention, and timber stand improvement. However, there is also the potential for increased demand to drive unsustainable levels of harvesting, with negative consequences for biodiversity, soil, and water conservation. Federal policies should strive to ensure the sustainability of woody biomass harvesting; this will go a long towards winning the public trust that is so essential if bioenergy is to be become a trusted and utilized component of the national energy system. Although sustainability should be a cornerstone of federal biomass policy, it is important that federal laws and programs do not include highly prescriptive (or proscriptive) rules for where biomass can be harvested, for what purposes, or in what quantities. The United States possesses a huge diversity of forest types, representing a wide variety of ecological conditions and managed for an array of social values and objectives. A sound management prescription for one fores