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National Biodiesel Board blasts EPA

www.biofuelsdigest.com- In Washington, National Biodiesel Board public affairs head Manning Feraci said that the EISA Act required the EPA to conduct a lifecycle analysis of biofuels as part of the Renewable Fuel Standard's implementation, but said that "This does not require the EPA to rely on faulty data and unrealistic scenarios that punish the U.S. biodiesel industry for wholly unrelated land use decisions in South America."

Faraci's comments came as a flock of biofuels friends and foes descended on the EPA for a day of public hearings. The hearings were part of public outreach on the EPA's proposed rulemaking for the Renewable Fuel Standard. Speakers, who were limited to five minutes of comment because of the numbers requesting a hearing, included the CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, Bon Dineen, and representatives from the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the American Petroleum Institute among other stakeholders in the RFS. Dinneen said that "for the potential benefits of the RFS2 to be fully realized, it is imperative that the regulation is guided by sound science, transparent analysis and economic modeling that stands up to scrutiny." The RFA said it opposed using 2005 as a baseline year for gasoline, noting the increased usage of tar sand oil since then, and raised major concerns over indirect land use change analysis (ILUC). ILUC received the majority of comments, with NRDC's Nathaniel Greene saying that "you can't put a value of zero on indirect emissions" just because the "cutting edge" science is immature, while the NBB, RFA and others sharply criticized the ILUC methodology and data sources.

The Illinois Corn Growers Association called the international land use effects methodology "deeply flawed", and the attorney for ICGA, David Crow, said "the EPA's proposal for including indirect effects rests on a "scientific black box" the contents of which have been withheld from the best available public knowledge and scrutiny". Nebraska Corn Board Chair Jon Holzfaster commented, "Along with the White House and EPA, Nebraska and all farmers support rulemaking that is based on sound science, while Iowa Corn Growers President Gary Edwards added that  "The Iowa Corn Growers Association shares many of the concerns about the ongoing development of new Renewable Fuel Standards raised in today's ICGA testimony before the EPA's hearing".

Dr. Mark Stowers, vice president of science and technology for POET, said that the ILUC analysis was "flawed and has no basis in law or science," adding that they failed to make proper comparison to gasoline, and said that the models underestimated corn and ethanol yields. Brent Erickson of BIO said "The EPA's own analysis makes clear that the infancy of the science makes the determination of international impacts highly uncertain at best. Furthermore, EPA's proposed approach to classifying biofuels into a limited number of rigid, pre-determined categories limits the industry's ability to innovate, since practice and process improvements are not recognized or rewarded." Meanwhile, elsewhere in Washington, Senator Charles Grassley noted that the EPA report on its indirect land use change methodology used the word "uncertain" more than 60 times. Meanwhile, Noam Ross of GreenOrder, in an article published this week, proposed that "Congress lets the ethanol industry off the hook for its indirect upstream effects, and the industry agrees that some of its massive subsidies be diverted to programs that protect forests and give farmers options beyond burning them down."