Ethanol proposal may derail climate bill
- Ethanol has long been an energy third rail in Congress. AP Photo
As part of that calculation, EPA was required to consider indirect land-use changes prompted by biofuels, a category that includes ripple effects across the globe, and one that critics say holds U.S. farmers responsible for economic factors far beyond their control.
For example, they say, if an American farmer decides to respond to the ethanol market by planting corn instead of soybeans — and as a result, Brazilian farmers decide to clear rain forests to grow soybeans — the increased carbon emissions from cutting down the forest would be calculated as a cost of producing ethanol.
“EPA’s actions, if based on erroneous indirect land-use assumptions, could hinder biofuels development and actually extend America’s reliance on dirtier fossil fuels,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who claims to be the only working farmer on the Agriculture Committee. “Agricultural practices and land-use decisions in other countries are not driven by U.S. biofuels policy and should not be used to undermine our domestic biofuels industry.”
Last week, Peterson introduced a bill that would exclude indirect land use from the life cycle definition and would put the departments of Energy and Agriculture — instead of EPA — in charge of evaluating the emissions. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) introduced a corresponding measure in the Senate.
Ethanol backers argue that there is no reliable scientific methodology or economic modeling that accurately links decisions by American farmers to crop changes across the world.
“Assume that those soybeans grown in Brazil are processed into animal feed and used to produce pork that ends up on someone’s dinner plate in China,” Bob Dinneen, CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, explained last week to the House Agriculture Committee. “According to the indirect land-use-change theory adopted by the EPA, U.S. corn ethanol would be responsible for the carbon footprint of that plate of moo shu pork being consumed in China.”
Dinneen and the Renewable Fuels Association plan to introduce “hundreds of pages” into the peer review process, hoping to persuade EPA to abandon the indirect land-use calculation. They’re using a similar strategy in California, where the Air Resources Board ruled last month to count indirect land-use changes when determining if biofuels meet the emissions standard set by California’s low-carbon fuel standard.
But a coalition of environmental groups is hitting back, arguing that calculating indirect land-use impacts is an important part of ensuring that the biofuel regulations actually lead to lower greenhouse-gas emissions. Including the indirect land use will help determine which types of biofuels have the biggest environmental benefit, they argue.
“Properly done, accounting for indirect land use will improve the ability of investors and developers to distinguish promising approaches from dead ends and drive investments and innovation towards these feedstocks and technologies,” the coalition argued in a letter to EPA.