Domestic Fuel

Senators from ethanol producing states are asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to propose regulations assuming that greater U.S. biofuels use would increase carbon dioxide emissions.

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) spoke on the Senate floor about the issue on Monday, following a letter sent by 12 senators to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson last week.

Grassley expressed fears that EPA is “going down a path of blaming our biofuels producers for land use changes around the globe.”

I’m afraid the climate folks at the EPA are heading in the wrong direction on this. I don’t think they’re bad people, but I’m afraid they don’t understand how American agriculture works. I don’t think they’re aware of the significant crop yield improvements we’ve seen in recent years or the great potential over the next 20 years. I also don’t think they fully understand the benefit of valuable ethanol byproducts, which further reduce the effective land used for fuels production. It defies common sense that the EPA would publish a proposed rulemaking with harmful conclusions for biofuels based on incomplete science and inaccurate assumptions.

Grassley is urging President Obama to take an active role in the issue and keep a close eye on what EPA is doing with regard to indirect land use calculations.

Over 100 of the nation’s top scientists are questioning the approach taken by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) which singles out biofuels for “indirect effects,” claiming that petroleum products result in lower carbon emissions.

Scientists affiliated with research labs such as the National Academy of Sciences, UC-Berkeley, Sandia National Labs, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and MIT sent a letter to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger offering their “comments on the critical issue of how to address the issue of indirect, market-mediated effects.”

Under the CARB Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) proposal, all fuels are assigned a “carbon score” to reward the least carbon intensive fuels. But only biofuels are being singled out for so-called “indirect effects,” which thereby gives petroleum products a better carbon score and a competitive advantage.

The scientists make two major compelling points regarding the indirect land use issue:
1. The science is far too limited and uncertain for regulatory enforcement
2. Indirect effects are often misunderstood and should not be enforced selectively

The scientists warn Gov. Schwarzenegger that the state’s proposal “creates an asymmetry or bias in a regulation designed to create a level playing field. It violates the fundamental presumption that all fuels in a performance-based standard should be judged the same way … Enforcing different compliance metrics against different fuels is the equivalent of picking winners and losers, which is in direct conflict with the ambition of the LCFS.”

Read the letter here.