Let's Not Go Backwards on Biofuels: Fixing the Climate Bill's Biofuels Provisions

I welcomed the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act last month. It is a good bill that gets us going down the road toward clean energy and climate solutions. But passing the bill in the House required some last-minute deal making, and one of the most troubling concessions made -- and one my colleagues and I will push to change in the Senate -- are the biofuels provisions.

At NRDC, we have long seen the promise in biofuels. Done right -- using sustainable crops and assessing the carbon footprint from soil to fuel tank -- biofuels can help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, bring new markets to rural communities, and be a real part of the solution to global warming.

But biofuels can also be done wrong, and if the ACES provisions don't get fixed, that is what will happen. Biofuels production will start threatening forests and wildlife habitat and even increase global warming pollution.

Biofuels done that way is something NRDC can't support. And it is something the American public won't support either. Americans have been willing to embrace biofuels as a clean energy solution, but if it turns into just another dirty fuel, they won't buy it. Nor will they tolerate the huge mandates and generous tax credits that direct more public money to biofuels than any other form of renewables.

I don't want to see that happen. I want to see America realize the promise of biofuels. That's why NRDC will be fighting to stop the three most problematic parts of the ACES biofuels policy from going forward. My NRDC colleague Dave Hawkins is testifying today, along with Agriculture Department Secretary Tom Vilsack, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, before the Senate Energy and Public Works Committee on biofuels and other aspects of the ACES bill (follow or read his testimony here). These are some of the things we intend to fix:

1. Using Faulty Carbon Accounting
Current law (the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007) requires the use of a huge amount of biofuels -- 36 billion gallons -- and requires new biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Now, however, as a result of an eleventh-hour change, ACES weakens this requirement by forcing the EPA to use faulty carbon accounting.

Rep. Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson and entrenched Big-Ag interests held ACES hostage, demanding changes that strip away the existing requirement that biofuels producers do a full life-cycle accounting of their carbon emissions, including market-driven impacts such as international deforestation.

This means that if a biofuels company persuades a farmer to grow biofuels feedstock instead of soy, it doesn't have to account for the fact that this decision impacts the global food market, and that somewhere in the world, another farmer is likely to clear carbon-storing tropical rainforest in order to grow soy to make up for the lost American supply.

In this fuzzy accounting system, we wouldn't have to acknowledge that the carbon released from deforestation is greater than the carbon pollution we were trying to limit by burning biofuels in cars.

Unless we fix this, the only responsible course for Congress is to temporarily suspend the renewable fuel standard, which creates the 36 billion gallon requirement. If we can't tell whether our biofuels are taking us in the right direction, we shouldn't require people to use them.

The truth is American farmers can produce biofuels from biomass that doesn't disrupt the food supply or raze our lands by reviving degraded farm land and using residues from agriculture, forestry, and recycling. But without the right signal -- a requirement to fully account for life-cycle carbon emissions -- American farmers won't have the incentive they need to explore biomass opportunities that prevent deforestation and genuinely reduce carbon emissions.

2. Watering Down Criteria for Biomass Sources
The ACES compromises took another step backward from existing law by dramatically weakening the guidelines for what constitutes renewable biomass -- a change that leaves our native grasslands, wildlife habitat, old-growth forests, and federal lands in danger of being cleared to produce energy crops. ACES now eliminates all sourcing guidelines on non-federal lands and significantly dilutes the level of protection for our federal forests.

3. Giving Biofuels a Big Loophole
The entire purpose of the American Clean Energy and Security Act is to track carbon emissions and account for them under the carbon cap. But lawmakers decided that emissions from burning biomass would not be covered under the cap. If a coal power plant replaces half of its coal with biomass, it only has to buy carbon allowances for half of its pollution.

This makes sense if the biomass is sourced in a sustainable, low-carbon way, but if the biomass comes from old growth trees or plowed under forests, then burning that biomass constitutes a major increase in carbon pollution. It should be covered under the cap, not given a free pass.

Undermining Public Support for Biofuels

The American public already tempered its support for biofuels when last year's spike in biofuels production was held responsible for rising global food costs.

Once people learn that lawmakers such as Representative Peterson are trying to strip away the guidelines that protect tropical forests, safeguard American wildlands, and ensure that biofuels are genuinely low-carbon, they will rightly grow more skeptical of the biofuels industry.

If we can repeal the last-minute biofuels amendments to ACES, we can replace that skepticism with a belief that biofuels done right can be a real, American-grown, global warming solution.

This post orginally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

Comments

[tonyt53]

To make the comment "means that if a biofuels company persuades a farmer to grow biofuels feedstock instead of soy" means exactly one thing - she knows absolutely nothing about biodiesel, which is still a biofuel. Only 18% of a soybean is used to make biodiesel. The remaining 82% is pure grain, which is the food. For someone to make such a claim, whilst professing to be an expert on the matter shows lack of education about the matter. Just another example of an expert getting their information from some other misguided source.

I do not support corn ethanol. Not because of the food vs. fuel issue, but the 30% drop in engine power. The US still exports more corn each year than the previous. The corn in a box of corn flakes accounts for about $0.15 of the cost. Why do you think General Mills is having record profits? The Grocery Manufacturers Association has fed misinformation to the public, and some people, like the author of this article, take it as gospel. Toss in the misinformation from the American Petroleum Institute and you have some outright lies being spread. Is it any accident that the GMA hired the same firm that the API has used to spread the mis-information? Is it any accident that some OPEC countries were the largest purchasers of commodities last year during their spike? How is it that the ILUC do not apply to petroleum oils? Talk about a "fuzzy" system.

[research]

Absolutely correct!

Waste bio fuels is the ONLY way to go.

There is more than enough organic waste to supply all the worlds fuels requirements Waste Biofuels solve two problems at once, energy and waste management. . BioChar looks like the simplest and best tech, but FT and others are also good.

See my profile for links and how biochar plus rooftop solar can supply all the electricity, energy and fuel we need

Forever.

[SarahN]

Best of luck - the more we educate people about problematic biofuels, the more likely we are to see the political winds shift.

While the Act definitely has its problems, at least we are finally moving in the right direction - keep pushing!

[DesertDogAlpha]

Frances - You have identified why all of this is likely to become just one more gigantic government boondoggle, along the lines of US agricultural policy over the past 50+ years. Good Democrats like Colin Peterson are so beholden to ag interests that they could care less about whether conventional biofuels are big contributors to climate change - just as long as the tax-funded trough that the agricultural piggies can feed from stays full and money moves from our cities to the hallowed "single family farmer" (of which there are fewer and fewer).

Your idealism is noteworthy but watch what happens. We'll give money to subidize coal even though it is the worst of the worst where carbon footprint is concerned, to subidize coal-fired power, to stop natural gas development in the US (which has a carbon footprint about 8 percent of that of coal), and to keep corn-based ethanol propped up (even though that is the second worst of the worst). And this will just be the Democrats. Republicans will only compound the situation.

Much cost for little to no effect is my unfortunate prediction. And, of course, the monumental CO2 that results from many farming and livestock feeding methods will be given a free ride in the climate bill in final form, even though it is a huge climate change creator.

[noneIn2008]

Let's quit starving the poor and elderly. Ban the use of any food crops and any livestock feed for use in fuel.

[TJCole]

We can stop using Corn a food stock for Ethanol and use Industrial Hemp instead...

We can get cellulose ethanol from the stalks and bio diesel from the seeds....

It renews 4 times a year, and you can pack an acre with it, no need to plant it in rows..!

It's a no brainer and would help save many family farms and create lots of green jobs...

It would also enhance our national security and energy independence a simple thing our government refuses to consider like Single Payer Health Care or Nationalizing the corrupt banks..

Hemp 4 Fuel...!

http://hemp4fuel.com/

Grow Here, Grow Now..!