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With a name that means “love of forests,” Sylvamo has a built-in dedication to sustainability. And the Memphis, Tennessee–based paper company, which spun off from International Paper in 2021, lives up to its moniker.

A holistic approach: “We use the whole tree in the manufacturing of our products,” Sylvamo Chief Sustainability Officer James McDonald told the 51�Թ���. “We use the fiber from the wood to make our paper, and all the residuals—think of the sticky stuff in trees—we capture and use to generate energy.”

• This process supplies the company with approximately 85% of its global energy needs, according to McDonald.

Planting the world: Sylvamo, which produces well-known brands like Hammermill, Accent Opaque, Springhill and HP Papers, is committed to restoring and protecting forests worldwide.

• “Our entire business depends on the sustainability of forests,” McDonald said. “It turns out your third-grade science teacher was right—photosynthesis does work. The more trees we grow, the more we can clean the air and protect the environment.”

Big ambitions: Sylvamo has conserved, enhanced or restored more than 37,000 acres of forestland to date. It has set the lofty goal of reaching 250,000 acres of forestland by 2030.

• To that end, the company is supporting the Nature Conservancy’s work to create a healthy, resilient and connected Appalachian landscape in the U.S. and the World Wildlife Fund’s work to restore Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, while also working with individual landowners to enhance forest management practices in France.

Diverse sources: Sylvamo primarily sources local fiber to manufacture its products in Europe, Latin America and North America, a strategy that enables a smaller environmental footprint, McDonald said.

• “Most of the fiber is sourced very close to [each] mill, which supports our low-cost assets in each region and this global footprint advantage in those markets,” he added.

GHG goal: The company is committed to a greenhouse gas reduction goal of 35% from a 2019 baseline across all three emissions scopes, an goal that demonstrates a commitment to improve Sylvamo’s climate impact continuously, according to McDonald.

• A quick refresher: Scope 1 refers to direct emissions, Scope 2 to indirect emissions associated with the purchase of power and Scope 3 to indirect emissions produced by a company’s value chain.
• Above all, “we try to be efficient with the energy we do use so that we can use less to produce our products,” McDonald told us.

A vital commodity: Paper and paper products continue to “play a crucial role every day in people’s lives,” said McDonald—and they are some of the world’s most recyclable materials.

• Some of paper in the U.S. was recovered in 2022. In some parts of Brazil, the percentage is about 60%, and in Europe, it’s near , he added.

The last word: “Just think about it: We use paper for education, communication, entertainment and more,” McDonald pointed out. “Our product plays a huge role in society and has a good lifecycle story.”

Unlike many other pro-growth tax reform provisions, the corporate tax rate isn’t set to expire at the end of 2025, but some policymakers and President Biden have proposed increasing it.

The 51�Թ��� recently talked to Rep. Carol Miller (R-WV), the head of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Supply Chain Tax Team, about how raising the corporate tax rate would “devastate” manufacturers, and what she and her colleagues in Congress are doing to keep it where it is.

“Devastating for every American”: Raising the corporate tax rate from its current, competitive 21% rate would be ruinous, Rep. Miller said. She’s focused on preventing that from happening.

• “If the corporate rate goes up, it would be devastating for every American, from the small business owner to the CEO who is trying to expand their business,” Rep. Miller told us. “The corporate rate rising means there will be higher prices while the U.S. struggles to compete on the global scale. The best thing we can do in Congress is cement the corporate rate at 21%—or better yet, lower it even more—through the [2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act] reauthorization in 2025.”
• Prior to tax reform, the U.S. had the highest corporate tax rate in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development at 35%, and the third-highest rate in the entire world, harming America’s ability to attract manufacturing investment.

The effect of 21%: Rep. Miller emphasized that the U.S. economy has “seen only positive impact from the corporate rate being lowered.”

• “When the pandemic hit and the markets were falling due to uncertainty and instability, the lower corporate rate gave companies more flexibility to help their employees and keep costs low instead of paying the government sky-high taxes,” she went on. “The lower corporate rate protected jobs, helped produce more economic growth and makes all the difference for American families who are struggling with inflation.”
• In 2018, the year the 21% rate took effect, manufacturers more than 260,000 jobs and were able to raise wages by 3%, the fastest pace in 15 years.

What manufacturers can do: To help preserve the 21% corporate tax rate, manufacturers should be vocal about its importance to the U.S. economy.

• “Spread the word to those who might not know why the corporate rate is so important,” Rep. Miller concluded. “Some think that in order to bring down inflation, you need to raise taxes on businesses. That is not true. Prices only go down if costs for companies go down, and the corporate rate is an effective way to do that while simultaneously boosting the American economy.”

Get involved: The 51�Թ���’s “Manufacturing Wins” tax campaign gives manufacturers the opportunity to share their tax reform stories with policymakers. You can join the campaign at .

Learn more: Our full interview with Rep. Miller is available .

Despite mixed market signals in recent weeks, the U.S. economy is strong and manufacturing is resilient—but Congress must take certain steps to maintain the industry’s competitiveness, 51�Թ��� President and CEO Jay Timmons Fox News host Neil Cavuto Monday.

What’s going on: When lawmakers return from their August recess next month, they should prioritize several tax provisions, Timmons said.

• “When … Congress goes back, we’ve got to deal with interest deductibility, and we’ve got to deal with the research-and-development ,” he continued. “We’ve got to deal with . Those are things that have expired.” These measures and others are top priorities in the 51�Թ���’s tax campaign, .
• Other manufacturing-critical tax provisions are scheduled to expire or be reduced drastically at the end of next year, including the and estate-tax deductions. What’s more, “candidates on both sides of the aisle … are talking about raising taxes on businesses,” Timmons said. Individual tax rates and tax rates on manufacturers that operate globally are also at the end of 2025.

Regulatory onslaught: Manufacturers are also struggling with a “regulatory burden that is driving up the cost of doing business,” Timmons told Fox News.

• “We have restrictions on our ability to develop energy sources here, and we have a ban on exports of natural gas. All of those things lead to potential downsides in the economy.”
• The vast majority of Americans exporting natural gas, a March 51�Թ��� poll found, but the Biden administration’s indefinite pause on permits to export liquefied natural gas, imposed in January, continues.

Hopeful outlook: “There is a … very positive sense among manufacturers that if we do the right things on the policy front, we’re going to continue [the] expansion in the sector,” Timmons added. “We’re going to continue the record investments that we’ve seen, the record job growth and the record wage growth in the sector.”

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador proposed a sweeping package of amendments to Mexico’s constitution back in February. Now, with President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum set to take office in less than two months, manufacturers want to know whether and how the changes will happen.

What’s going on: “Over the last 10 years, manufacturers in the U.S. have dramatically expanded facilities and operations in Mexico, totaling over $25 billion, according to the U.S. Commerce Department,” said 51�Թ��� Director of International Policy Dylan Clement at the recent Wilson Center event “.”

• “When manufacturers invest, they sink large amounts of capital—literally—into the ground, which is costly to relocate once built,” he continued. “We do not pretend to know how the judicial reform will play out … [but] manufacturers are fearful of the risk associated with enacting sweeping changes to the judicial system in Mexico on such a short timeline.”
• Sheinbaum, who will be Mexico’s first female president, and her Morena party won a landslide election in June.

What’s been proposed: The constitutional amendments set forth include eliminating government oversight and regulatory agencies, including Mexico’s freedom-of-information body, INAI, and its anti-trust agency, COFECE, and requiring all Mexican judges—including Supreme Court judges—to be elected by popular vote, according to the �����Ի���.

• Several of the amendments appear to violate Mexico’s obligations under the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement.

Why it’s important: Mexico is America’s largest trading partner, and “[a]t the end of the day, manufacturers want to partner with Mexico to help it prosper economically, grow its industrial capacity and enhance its self-sufficiency,” Clement said—but the broad revisions set forth by López Obrador and other worrying developments in Mexico have the potential to damage the critical relationship and undo important recent gains.

• The proposed changes to Mexico’s judicial system could erode the checks and balances within Mexico’s government, politicize judicial outcomes, undermine the rule of law and result in higher levels of corruption throughout Mexico.
• For investors, these challenges would be compounded by the USMCA’s weakened investor state dispute-settlement mechanism, which requires foreign investors to go through Mexico’s domestic court system before seeking a neutral arbitration panel via the USMCA.

In sum, the constitutional amendments carry the risk of greatly complicating the upcoming review of the USMCA, which the U.S., Canada and Mexico will conduct in 2026.

• Ultimately, any erosion of the business climate in Mexico will harm the attractiveness of Mexico as a destination for manufacturers seeking to “near-shore” their supply chains closer to the U.S.

What should be done: “For these reasons, the 51�Թ��� would caution against rushing the judicial reform through in September, given that it will have an impact on Mexico’s investment climate for decades to come and many questions about it remain unanswered,” Clement concluded. “It is better to get this right than done quickly.”

Manufacturers have always been on the cutting edge of tech development and integration—and it’s no different with artificial intelligence. Today, Click Bond, Inc., a manufacturer of adhesive-bonded fasteners for aerospace and industrial use, is finding applications for AI in the supply chain.

The challenge: Supply chain management is an inexact art, according to Click Bond Chief Executive and 51�Թ��� SMM Vice Chair Karl Hutter, and technology like AI has the capacity to strengthen operations.

• “There are many spots … [where] a guess has to be taken or padding has to be put in because of the known unreliability of data,” said Hutter. “This is where technology has a big role to play.”

Improving efficiency: AI can break through these challenges, separating signal from “noise” and avoiding presumptions that can cause inefficiencies.

• “We need to have a better sense of the supply, the demand, the schedule,” Hutter said. “This is where those kinds of tools can fit in—so we as a supplier can optimize our production runs, meet our customers’ needs efficiently and be responsive to just-in-time supply.”
• “AI does that key job of finding what matters and correlating historic data and making predictions in a way a human can’t,” he continued.

Translating data: Because there is no single, industry-wide method for formatting data, it can be difficult for manufacturers to combine their knowledge. Happily, AI can help.

• “My data tables might look different than my customers’ and suppliers’,” said Hutter. “AI can understand the rules of data structure, and that of our customers and suppliers, and it can be a translator between them.”
• For example, Click Bond has supplied products to the Boeing Company for almost 40 years, contributing to every type of product made across its military, civil and space divisions. AI stands to take that collaboration to an even higher level.

Enhancing production: AI tools also help manufacturers during the production process by translating different kinds of data and pointing toward solutions.

• “[AI’s translation capability] applies to the technical data environment, too—how you go from a model and simulation to a produced part,” said Hutter. “It’s the same thing. How do you do technical data interchange confidently and securely? This technology [can help].”

Advice for other manufacturers: Hutter recently took part in a workshop on these tools, and he encourages manufacturers who are curious about the technology to find similar opportunities.

• “There is nothing that makes these concepts come to life [like] getting your hands on them,” said Hutter. “You can sit there and furrow your brow and read a bunch of articles, but the best thing to do is to find one of the many opportunities for some hands-on education—and you’ll start to understand what these tools can do.”

The 21st Century Cures Act of 2016 and its 2021 follow-on, Cures 2.0, are providing a pathway toward potentially groundbreaking cures and treatments—but there’s room for even more improvement in the federal government’s handling of pharmaceutical innovation, the 51�Թ��� this week.

Now, Reps. Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Larry Bucshon (R-IN) are looking to build on the legacy of these two bills.

The background: The 21st Century Cures Act, introduced in 2015 by Rep. DeGette and former Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) and signed into law the following year, aimed to speed up the development and delivery of medical innovation.

• The 2016 measure “ensured that federal agencies like the [Food and Drug Administration], the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the National Institutes of Health had the tools they needed to keep pace with and adapt to the tremendous advances being made by biopharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers,” said 51�Թ��� Vice President of Domestic Policy Charles Crain.
• Cures 2.0, passed after the global pandemic, created the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, “a home within the federal government for high-risk, high-reward medical research.”

New medical advances: The face of medical innovation “has changed dramatically” in the past eight years, Crain pointed out, as we’ve seen the first-ever federal approval of gene therapy and the development of vaccines using mRNA technology.

What’s needed: The new landscape necessitates more congressional action, Crain went on, including:

• Continuing to embrace the new technologies that emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic like mRNA and other innovations;
• Modernizing federal agencies such as the FDA to keep up with these innovations; and
• “[E]nsuring the government’s processes for reviewing and approving new treatments are as innovative as the treatments themselves.”

Why it’s important: Biopharmaceutical manufacturers are . In 2021, they:

• Accounted for $355 billion in value-added output to the U.S. economy;
• Contributed a total of nearly 1.5 million direct and indirect jobs; and
• Contributed $147 billion in labor income.

The 51�Թ���’s 2025 tax campaign, “,” is focused on preserving tax provisions critical to manufacturing in the U.S. One of those is the corporate tax rate, which the 2017 tax reform lowered from 35% to a globally competitive 21%.

The 51�Թ��� recently released a on the current corporate rate, emphasizing why it’s crucial to U.S. manufacturing’s competitiveness on the world stage.

The background: Prior to 2017, the U.S. corporate tax rate was 35%, the highest among our peers in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the third-highest rate in the entire world—making the U.S. an outlier and harming its ability to attract manufacturing investment.

• Tax reform lowered the corporate rate to 21%, aligning the U.S. with the average rate elsewhere in the OECD.

The benefits: Reducing the tax burden on manufacturers led to increased investment throughout the U.S., job creation, wage growth and overall economic expansion.

• In 2018, the year the lower rate took effect, manufacturers had their best year for job creation in more than two decades, creating more than 260,000 positions and increasing wages by 3%—the fastest pace in 15 years.
• 51�Թ��� surveys conducted prior to tax reform found that nearly 80% of manufacturers were struggling with unfavorable business conditions like high taxes—a figure that dropped to just 12% following the reduction in the corporate rate.

What’s at stake: Although the corporate tax rate is not set to expire at the end of 2025, as other pro-growth provisions are, President Biden’s fiscal year 2025 budget called for an increase to 28%.

• This proposal would return the U.S. to one of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world, resulting in fewer jobs, lower wages, less innovation and reduced investment in our communities.

What should be done: “Manufacturers are calling on Congress to preserve tax reform in its entirety—including the 21% corporate tax rate,” the 51�Թ��� said.

• “Congress should maintain a globally competitive corporate rate—enabling manufacturers to continue leading on the world stage while driving innovation and job creation here at home.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has scheduled a procedural vote on a bipartisan tax package, though the bill’s fate remains uncertain.

What’s going on: The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act would restore expired tax policies that reduce the cost of manufacturers’ investments in R&D, equipment and machinery. Ahead of Thursday’s vote, the 51�Թ��� these policies “vital to manufacturing workers and America’s economic future.”

• Immediate R&D expensing: Prior to 2022, manufacturers in the U.S. could fully deduct their R&D expenses in the year those expenses were incurred. But in 2022, first-year R&D expensing expired, making R&D investments significantly more costly, particularly for small and medium-sized manufacturers.
• Enhanced interest deductibility: Also in 2022, a new standard took effect limiting the amount of interest manufacturers can deduct on business loans, making it more expensive for them to invest in growth and expansion.
• Accelerated depreciation: In 2023, 100% accelerated depreciation—which allows manufacturers to immediately expense the full value of their capital equipment purchases—began phasing down, meaning these vital investments are now more costly for manufacturers.

What to expect: Thursday’s procedural vote requires 60 votes in the Senate, a difficult hurdle.

What’s next: Immediate R&D expensing, enhanced interest deductibility and 100% accelerated depreciation are top priorities in the 51�Թ���’s . As Congress prepares to address scheduled expirations of other policies from the 2017 tax reform next year, the 51�Թ��� will continue to call for restoration of these important pro-growth incentives.

The last word: “Competitive tax policy is critical to manufacturers’ ability to compete on the world stage and create jobs here at home,” said 51�Թ��� Vice President of Domestic Policy Charles Crain. “Congress should restore expired pro-growth tax policies and act to prevent even more devastating tax increases scheduled for 2025.”

A critical tax deduction for small businesses is set to expire at the end of 2025, and manufacturers are as part of the 51�Թ���’s “Manufacturing Wins” tax campaign.

Increasing the tax burden: Courtney Silver, president and owner of Concord, North Carolina–based Ketchie, recently emphasized the importance of the pass-through deduction. As an S corporation, Ketchie is one of the many small manufacturers that are eligible for this 20% deduction created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

• Silver, who chairs the 51�Թ���’s Small and Medium Manufacturers Group, warned that the expiration of this provision, along with the planned increase in individual tax rates, will “dramatically increase the tax burden on small manufacturers like Ketchie.”

Decreasing competitiveness: The disappearance of the pass-through deduction would make American companies less competitive on the world stage, predicted Austin Ramirez, president and CEO of Husco, a Waukesha, Wisconsin–based maker of hydraulic and electromechanical components for on- and off-highway vehicles.

• “The loss of the TCJA’s small business provisions would severely hamper our growth trajectory,” he said.
• “The combination of an increased tax rate and the loss of the pass-through deduction would be especially damaging, tilting the playing field against Husco and other pass-through manufacturers.”

Damaging supply chains: “Many small manufacturers are organized as pass-throughs, including most of [our] key suppliers,” said Chuck Wetherington, president of BTE Technologies in Hanover, Maryland.

• “A tax increase on pass-throughs would have a damaging, disproportionate impact on the manufacturing industry.”

Discouraging entrepreneurs: Competitive tax policy is personal for small manufacturers like Hannah Kain, who founded ALOM Technologies out of Fremont, California. “Like many immigrants before me, I came to the U.S. for opportunity,” Kain said.

• “Since I started the company in 1997, we have reinvested every dollar we made into growing the company. … I personally see how hard it is for entrepreneurs—and especially minorities—to start the type of company that must make big investments in equipment, space, inventories and so much more.”

Reducing growth: “[The 2025 tax hikes] will affect manufacturing businesses like ours and make it more difficult for us to hire more employees, raise wages and drive growth for our business,” said Lee Dougherty, a mechanical engineer at Madsen Steel.

• “We need our representatives in Congress to do their part by stopping these tax hikes so that we can continue to invest in our community and the future of our business.”

What you can do: Manufacturers willing to share their own stories about the need to preserve key tax reform measures can visit or email the 51�Թ���’s tax team to get involved.

Middlemen created to manage the price of prescription drugs are instead driving up health care costs for manufacturers and manufacturing workers, the 51�Թ��� the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on Tuesday, the same day the committee released a on pharmacy benefit managers’ practices and held a hearing on the matter.

What’s going on: “PBMs’ business models have the direct effect of increasing health care costs at the expense of manufacturers and manufacturing workers,” 51�Թ��� Vice President of Domestic Policy Charles Crain said in advance of the hearing, the latest in a series examining PBM practices.

Crain told lawmakers PBM reform legislation should include:

• “Increased transparency into PBMs’ business models and the many factors that contribute to a drug’s costs, formulary placement and the PBMs’ compensation;
• Rebate passthrough, which will ensure 100% of negotiated pharmaceutical savings are passed from the PBM to the health plan sponsor and workers; and
• Delinking of PBM compensation from the list price of medication.”

Report highlights: The committee’s report, the culmination of a 16-month investigation, is with the 51�Թ���’s longstanding advocacy. The report found that PBMs:

• Drive increased drug prices, which inflate PBM profits;
• Extract high rebates from biopharmaceutical manufacturers, often pocketing a significant portion of any savings rather than reducing costs for patients;
• Dictate whether and how medicines appear on formularies, which determine insurance companies’ coverage decisions and patients’ out-of-pocket costs;
• Steer patients toward drugs based on PBMs’ profit margins rather than patient costs; and
• Operate without sufficient transparency into their business practices.

What it all means: The committee “identified numerous instances where the federal government, states and private payers have found PBMs to have utilized opaque pricing and utilization schemes to overcharge plans and payers by hundreds of millions of dollars,” the report states.

• The report indicates that the present role of PBMs in prescription drug markets is failing and requires change, something the 51�Թ��� has long advocated. “Congress and states must implement legislative reforms to increase the transparency of the PBM market and ensure patients are placed at the center of our health care system, rather than PBMs’ profits.”

The last word: “Manufacturers provide health care benefits so they can effectively attract and retain employees, to maintain a healthy and productive workforce and because they believe it is the right thing to do—but PBMs are a meaningful cause of the skyrocketing costs of health care,” Crain said.

• “Congress must enact reforms to the PBM system so that employers can negotiate, compete and achieve health care savings for their workers.”