The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) has provided more details about the compromise worked out this week on the climate change bill expected to come up for a vote in the House of Representatives on Friday.
“Good faith negotiations and old fashioned horse sense led to a deal that achieves both our energy security and environmental goals,” said RFA President Bob Dinneen. “By ordering further review of the controversial theory of international indirect land use change, Congress can allow science to catch up with policy goals.”
According to RFA, the compromise contains the following provisions:
The definition of renewable biomass was harmonized with the 2008 Farm Bill language for private lands. Environmental safeguards for public lands were preserved.
The Environmental Protection Agency is prohibited from imposing the unfair penalty of international land use change on biofuels for 5 years while research is conducted to determine the validity of such a theory. After that period, the Secretaries of Agriculture and Energy as well as the EPA Administrator must jointly decide to accept or reject the findings. Additionally, Congress will have one year following that decision to act, if it so chooses.
Biodiesel facilities built before implementation of the 2007 energy bill while be grandfathered into the law in the same fashion as ethanol facilities of the same vintage.
Dinneen says House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and their staffs deserve a great deal of credit for getting this bill to a vote. “While just the first step in a long process, the House should move quickly to pass this legislation,” he said.