Typical politics. One day a bipartisan group of senators were all set to ‘“prohibit the EPA, for one year, from spending funds to include international indirect land use change emissions in the implementation of the RFS.”’ Then they receive a letter from the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, and now they have apparently changed their collective mind. Or, at least Senator Tom Harkin did.Senators Harkin and Charles Grassley (Iowa), along with Senator Ben Nelson (Nebraska) were going to offer an amendment to the Agriculture Appropriations bill that would have barred the use of these funds to consider indirect land use in determining greenhouse gas emissions when the new rule for Renewable Fuels Standards is implemented.
As the New York Times’ Green Inc. blog reports, Harkin spokesman Grant Gustafson stated, ‘"In light of the EPA letter, and because EPA had said [the amendment] would delay issuing regulations to establish renewable fuel volume biofuel requirements for 2010 [.]”’ As this blog reported yesterday when the amendment was still going to be offered, the indirect land-use change emissions assumes that as more crops are grown for ethanol and biofuel production, this might prompt carbon release in other countries through deforestation “to compensate for U.S. cropland devoted to fuels.” As one can imagine, this part of the rule is problematic when the U.S. is trying to integrate ethanol and biofuels into the national energy system, and many were unsure how the EPA could calculate how one action in one country can lead to carbon emissions through deforestation in another country, and what the emission amount would be?
Of course the requirement was part of a previous energy law passed by Congress in 2007. In the letter Jackson does not say a final rule will not have a calculation for international land-use changes, but the agency would conduct an ‘“uncertainty analysis” of the issue. Additionally, Jackson states in the letter, ‘"This analysis will allow us to quantify the impact of uncertainty on the lifecycle emissions . . . We will present these estimates in the final rule, and I plan to incorporate those estimates of uncertainty in my regulatory decisions."’ Still, the letter states that previous research and feedback does ‘“indicate that it is important to take into account indirect emissions from biofuels when looking at the lifecycle emissions as required by [the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007].” This statute expands the biofuels standard and the associated greenhouse gas requirements.
Where the senators and the EPA actually go from here remains to be seen.
To read the New York Times’ blog post on this story click here.
To see a PDF of the letter from Jackson to Senator Harkin click here.
To see a PDF of the letter from Jackson to Senator Harkin click here.
Posted: 09/25/09
