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Senators Introduce Bill to Protect Biofuels from Indirect Land Use Rule
USAgNet - 09/23/2009

U.S. senators Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and Ben Nelson of Nebraska Tuesday introduced legislation that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from going ahead with regulations that would limit the production and use of biofuels required by Congress’ 2007 energy bill. The EPA regulations would penalize U.S. biofuel producers for greenhouse gas emissions that the EPA claims result from changes in land use in other countries, such as the clearing of land for cropping, allegedly caused by the increased production of biofuels in the United States.

The proposed amendment to the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations bill would prohibit the EPA, for one year, from spending funds to include international indirect land use change emissions in the implementation of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS). At this time, the data and analytic methodologies for credibly calculating international indirect land use change emissions do not exist. Because of this, including these international emissions in the EPA’s rule would put an unjust burden on the biofuels industry.

“Expanding the production and use of domestic biofuels is one of the most critical components of our strategy for reducing dependence on imported oil. The Renewable Fuel Standard (or RFS2), as revised in 2007, lays out a sound expansion trajectory. To meet our strategic goals, we must stay on that path,” said Harkin. ”We have broad, solid agreement about which direct emissions should be included in lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, and we have broad agreement on how to quantify those emissions. The 2007 energy bill, however, calls for the inclusion of indirect emissions, such as those associated with land use changes and this is a mistake. To put it bluntly, including international indirect emissions at this time is bad policy.”

“Biofuels are an important part of the diverse energy mix that will reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy,” said Nelson. “This amendment will stop the EPA from using inaccurate or incomplete calculations that could compromise our ability to expand production of biofuels. More complete studies need to be conducted before land use calculations can be effective.”

“The model that the EPA cobbled together to measure indirect land use is far from scientific, it’s controversial and isn’t supported by the facts. EPA’s analysis for its rulemaking on RFS 2 contained calculations for international indirect land use changes. However, nowhere in the statute is the EPA required to calculate international effects,” Grassley said. “It defies common sense that the EPA would try to blame an Iowa farmer for the actions of Brazilian farmers and developers.”

Recent communications from the EPA indicate that the agency has already reached the highly debatable conclusion that increasing production of biofuels in the United States has a “significant” impact on land use changes in other countries - even though the public comment period on the regulation will remain open until September 25th and thus EPA could not have fully analyzed all of the public’s analysis and comments.

On March 2, 2009, one hundred of the nation’s top scientists, including preeminent members of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote a letter warning that it would be a mistake to enforce a new and highly uncertain category of carbon emissions – indirect or market-mediated effects – against only biofuels. The scientists wrote that all fuels have indirect carbon effects and that these effects are not well understood or readily quantifiable.