House Dems OK Nixing Land Use Impact in EPA's Biofuel Assessment Plan

House Dems OK Nixing Land Use Impact in EPA's Biofuel Assessment Plan

It's clear that President Obama, who hails from a corn-growing state, is a big ethanol supporter - he's said so in a number of speeches, beginning back when he was running for the job.

Now it appears that the ethanol lobby also has a lot of support in Congress.

Bowing to pressure from the industry and from House members from big corn- and soy-growing states, House Democrats have approved a plan to shelve, for at least the next five years, the EPA's controversial decision to consider the indirect land use implications of biofuels production in computing their carbon footprint.

The proposal, which would be added to the energy and climate bill now being marked up in the House,  comes as Democrats seek to mollify farmers and biofuels producers who claim the so-called land use assessment policy would unfairly penalizes them because it isn't applied to other types of fuels. They also have argued that the methodologies for assessing the carbon impact of land use changes haven't yet been proven accurate.

Proponents of the so-called land use assessment procedure maintain that demand for corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel can result in land covered by forests and grasslands - land that soaks up carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases  - being plowed under to make room for biofuel crops that need fertilizers and insecticides that help create more greenhouse gases.

Assigning carbon impact assessments to the various alternative fuels is part of the way the EPA  judges whether a fuel is one of the renewable fuels whose use is mandated by the 2007 federal energy bill. If the carbon footprint is too high, a fuel is excluded from the renewables classification.

Ethanol boosters, or course, want their fuel to be considered a renewable so that it has to be mixed into the national fuel supply - guaranteeing them a steady market.

The plan approved by House Democrats this week would would keep the EPA from considering for at least the next five years the emissions linked to indirect land-use changes when formulating rules to implement the renewable fuels standard.

And after five year, the federal Energy and Agriculture departments as well as the EPA would have to approve  resumption of the land use assessments - and if all three did sign off, their decision would still be subject to congressional review.

That set of provisions would seem to pretty much assure that land use impact assessment will never be put back in play.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.