Senate Bill Would Curb Unproven Indirect Land Use Measures
U.S. Senator John Thune has introduced a bill designed to strengthen the Renewable Fuels Standard and prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from using inaccurate indirect land use models to discredit the positive environmental impacts of ethanol.
“Following California’s recent decision to use flawed models to estimate ethanol’s environmental impact, I am concerned that the EPA could soon apply similar standards that will handicap renewable fuel relative to regular gasoline,” said Thune. “Congress has asked EPA to apply greenhouse gas emission standards that reflect ethanol’s proven environmental benefits. However, with the EPA’s current decision that is pending at the White House, I am concerned that EPA’s action could have a detrimental impact on our renewable fuel industry and efforts to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”
Thune’s bill directs the EPA to focus on direct lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, which would level the playing field between ethanol and regular gasoline and bring more regulatory certainty to the ethanol industry. Additionally, the bill would require EPA to publicize the model for measuring lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions before taking any regulatory action. The bill would also allow individual ethanol producers with a unique production method to apply to the EPA for a lower carbon score which would provide an incentive for ethanol companies to develop innovative ways to produce ethanol.
2 Comments »
Kwolek
You can’t define the efficiency of 180 ethanol refineries in one brushstroke. They’re all different. Take a closer look at all the innovative ways some producers are becoming more efficient. Local biogas and biomass being used to supplement natural gas for example. Fractionation and advanced extraction methods. Integration of algae by Green Plains and Greenshift, and the coming mitigation of CO2 and waste products by algae. The ethanol optimized high torque engines that are coming from Ricardo, Lotus, Suzuki, and FlexDI. By the way, these can run on 100% ethanol. They’re no slave to gasoline.
Compare a domestic fuel that is produced and consumed locally with one that relies on crude oil from energy intensive oil sands or shipped-in thousands of miles from the middle east. There’s no way that can be cleaner than cutting edge evolving domestic ethanol.
Not to mention our routine practice of using debt instruments to pay for foreign oil, added to the National Debt, which we pay interest on. Did CARB consider that indirect effect? You pay no interest on domestic fuel.
Did CARB also figure in the environmental impact and the cost and fuel consumption of military protection for our foreign oil supplies, and how that indirectly impacts the price of gasoline and diesel at the pump?
Ever see the deforestation caused by coal strip mining, or miles and miles of Canadian tar sands, or clear cutting of forests for lumber, or an interstate highway that is hundreds of miles long? Why are biofuels being singled-out by using unscientific methods? The rains forests have been stripped for lumber, paper pulp, and cattle for over 50 years, long before ethanol and biodiesel became a factor. They’re also being deforested to produce food.
CARB is using unproven Indirect Land Use Changes as an excuse to give California made fuels and petroleum an unfair advantage in the marketplace. That could be against Interstate Commerce Law. CARB could be vulnerable to litigation.
The EPA is required by law to evaluate the environmental impact of fuels, however it too would be vulnerable if it uses inaccurate, unscientific methods. In 1995, the EPA built a turbocharged engine, running on ETHANOL, with a 19.5 to 1 compression ratio that got 25% more power and better fuel efficiency than it got on gasoline. Furthermore, it has to have a different stance, representing 50 states. This is no time to stifle a domestic fuel an industry that has so much to offer.
David
John has his head on straight and I hope he runs for President
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