Proposal Would Boost Biofuels, Set Emission-Reduction Targets

This story appears in the May 11 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Obama administration last week issued a renewable fuel standard proposal aimed at growing the supply of biofuels and for the first time requiring them to meet emission-reduction targets.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said the new rule is designed to help promote and provide financial assistance to the biofuels industry and to increase the supply of renewable fuels to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

“As we work towards energy independence, using more homegrown biofuels reduces our vulnerability to oil price spikes that everyone feels at the pump,” Jackson said at a May 5 conference call with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The proposed standard is the latest in a series of EPA rule changes aimed at addressing climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and U.S. dependency on foreign oil. It was accompanied by an announcement that a federal

Cabinet-level biofuels working group has been created to market and assist in the research, development and production of biofuels.

When EPA formally publishes the proposed standard in the Federal Register, interested parties will have 60 days to comment on it. A final rule could be issued after the agency reviews the comments.

During the conference call, Chu also announced plans to provide $787 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law earlier this year, to accelerate advance biofuels research and development and to fund the construction of commercial biorefinery demonstration projects.

“Developing the next generation of biofuels is key to our effort to end our dependence on foreign oil and address the climate crisis,” Chu said.

EPA said it expects that by 2022, the renewable fuels standard will reduce dependence of foreign oil by more than 297 million barrels a year and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 160 million tons a year.

The proposed rule would establish new volume requirements for cellulosic biofuel, biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel and total renewable fuel that must be used in transportation fuels each year.

The proposed rule, to be fashioned to comply with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, includes new definitions and criteria for both renewable fuels and the feedstocks that produce them.

EPA said the greenhouse gas emission assessments must evaluate the full life-cycle emissions effects of fuel production, including significant emissions from land use changes resulting from reducing corn grown for the world’s food supply.

Environmentalists said they fear the increases in corn ethanol production could cause farmers in developing nations to clear rain forests and release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“EPA has taken an important step towards getting biofuels right,” said Nathanael Greene, director of re-newable energy policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “If we get the rules of the road right through policies such as this one, we can harness the ingenuity of America’s farmers, foresters and entrepreneurs to create a new generation of biofuels that will help create jobs and reduce our dependence on oil.”

Bob Dickey, president of the National Corn Growers Association, said the new standard is an example of the administration’s commitment to the biofuels industry.

“In our conversations with the EPA, we understand that there is a great deal of work that needs to be done on modeling and a great effort that needs to be put into using current and correct data regarding indirect land use,” Dickey said. “We look forward to the opportunities to establish that biofuels production can be achieved without land use changes.”

Manning Feraci, a vice president with the National Biodiesel Board, said the new standard “is of vital importance to the U.S. biodiesel industry and is consistent with a national energy strategy that values the displacement of petroleum diesel fuel with low-carbon renewable fuels.”

However, Feraci said, in determining the greenhouse gas profile for biodiesel, EPA seems to be “penalizing” the U.S. biofuels industry for land use decisions made outside the United States. He encouraged the agency to offer a workable final rule.