The new, proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules for the Renewable Fuels Standard has the biofuels community split over if they will be good for the green fuels. The point of contention has to do with the impact Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) will have on biofuel production. Under the new rules, biodiesel made from soybeans has been deemed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by only 22 percent… while it must reduce those emissions by 50 percent if it wants to count toward the RFS 1-billion-gallon goal by 2012. There also are emission goals for ethanol, but existing corn ethanol plants have been exempted; existing biodiesel refineries did not get the same break.
So, what’s good news for ethanol… and welcomed in that community… is bad news for biodiesel. The National Biodiesel Board was on Capitol Hill today, where Vice President of Federal Affairs Manning Feraci told the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy and Research that the new requirement would seriously imperil the biodiesel industry:
“By statute, EPA must consider significant indirect emissions when calculating a renewable fuel’s emission profile. Unfortunately, it appears that the proposed rule EPA unveiled yesterday relies on uncertain, inexact assumptions pertaining to Indirect Land Use Change in calculating biodiesel’s greenhouse gas emission profile. The result is that biodiesel produced from domestically produced vegetable oils are disqualified from the Biomass-based Diesel program. There are many factors unrelated to U.S. biodiesel production that impact land use decisions abroad. For example, in Brazil, forestry, cattle ranching and subsistence farming drive land use decisions, yet the EPA’s proposed methodology appears to attribute this change to U.S. biodiesel production. This assumption defies common-sense…
“As a result of these dubious land use assumptions, the EPA’s proposed rule restricts feedstock for low-carbon diesel replacement fuel to only animal fats and restaurant grease. Vegetable oils account for more than sixty percent of the feedstock that is available to meet the RFS-2 Biomass-based Diesel targets, and the RFS-2 volume goals simply cannot be met if vegetable oils are disqualified from the program. Even under the so-called pathway for biodiesel that is briefly outlined in the proposed rule, there will not be enough feedstock available to meet the RFS-2 volume goals for Biomass-based diesel. This outcome is not consistent with either sound science or sound energy policy.
Meanwhile, the folks in the algae-biodiesel business seem happy with the proposed EPA changes. Dr. John Scott, chairman of PetroAlgae, released a statement today in favor of the nearly $800 million in biomass funding that will become available:
“This is a good first step toward building America’s clean energy economy, but it’s not the end game. Going forward, two things will be critical: investing in micro-crops like algae that are more productive and do not jeopardize our food and water supplies; and making sure we back solutions that are commercially viable today and sustainable over the long term.”
The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee on Wednesday announced strong opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency’s just released proposed rulemaking on the Renewable Fuels Standard that includes impacts from indirect land use changes.
Margo Oge, head of EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, took the heat in the witness chair before the committee, attempting to clarify and justify the measuring of international land use changes, such as forest clearing in the Amazon, in determining lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions for biofuels. Oge laid the blame back in the laps of the congressmen questioning her who voted for the 2007 Energy Information and Security Act. “EISA required EPA to look broadly at lifecycle analysis and to develop a methodology that accounts for all factors that may significantly influence this assessment, including indirect land use,” Oge said. “Ignoring such a large contributor of greenhouse gas emissions would render the concept of lifecycle analysis, which was mandated by Congress, scientifically less credible.”
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When pressed by reporters for details about how corn ethanol fits into the RFS, Jackson noted that 15 billion gallons of ethanol production are “grandfathered in” under EISA, most of which is corn ethanol. “Corn based ethanol is a bridge, it’s an extraordinarily important bridge, but it is a bridge to the next generation of biofuels,” said Jackson. In answer to another question, Jackson said, “This proposal lays out a number of pathways for us to include corn based ethanol” and she noted that EPA’s 
The ethanol industry is pleased and encouraged with the announcement made by the Obama administration regarding the future development of biofuels under the Renewable Fuels Standard and the creation of a Biofuels Interagency Working Group made up of USDA, EPA and DOE. 
Back in November, 2007, I told you about a truck that was running from London, England to Timbuktu in Africa on chocolate-based biodiesel (see 
Citing its central location… in relation to the United States and the country’s wind power industry… officials at Siemens say they will build a wind turbine equipment factory in Hutchison, Kansas.
While the new Environmental Protection Agency rules regarding the Renewable Fuels Standard have been welcomed by some renewable fuel advocates (see 
“We really applaud Enterprise for their commitment to E85 and their commitment to flex fuel vehicles,” said Rob Elam, president of Propel Fuels. “We think that – especially in states like California – that kind of leadership from business is very much appreciated by both the public as well as policy decision makers at the state level.” 
During a press conference immediately following the announcement, 
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The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy, together with the Environmental Protection Agency will make up the the new Biofuels Interagency Working Group. “The president has directed us to create a comprehensive biofuel marketing development program to focus on the infrastructure that will be necessary for this industry to be a permanent part of the American economy and to do it in a sustainable way,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during a conference call this morning with EPA administrator Lisa Jackson and Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Secretary Chu noted that agriculture is one of the nation’s greatest resources for energy. “We have incredible capacity not only to grow the food we need and to have dynamic exports, we can also grow a considerable amount of energy,” said Chu. He announced that $786 million will be invested through the recovery act for the development of advanced biofuels and the expansion of commercial biorefineries. Chu also said they will be creating an Algae Biofuels Consortium for the development of algae biofuels.