Ethanol Lobbyists Make Last-Ditch Effort to Delay Calif.'s Low-Carbon Fuel Rules
By Scott Doggett December 16, 2009
Ethanol lobbyists in Washington Tuesday made a last-ditch attempt to send California's low-carbon fuel regulation back to the drafting stage, with a plea to a key state official to reject the rule on the grounds that its architects did not follow proper procedures.
In a letter to Susan Lapsley, director of California's Office of Administrative Law, the Renewable Fuels Association charged the state California Air Resources Board (CARB) with circumventing the required administrative process after it tentatively approved the low-carbon fuel standard earlier this year.
CARB filed the rule with the administrative office November 25, in what amounts to a final bureaucratic hurdle before the agency can formally approve the rule.
The low-carbon fuel standard directs fuels producers to cut the carbon intensity of their products by 10 percent by 2020. Ethanol manufacturers oppose it because the carbon intensity formula would apply a life-cycle emissions test that takes into account effects on agriculture and land use.
The Renewable Fuel Association, which is the chief lobbying arm of the ethanol industry, says the air board was required by state law to submit a "final statement of reasons" to the administrative office along with the rule in question.
That statement should have included a "summary of each objection or recommendation made regarding the specific adoption, amendment or repeal proposed, together with an explanation of how the proposed action has been changed to accommodate each objection or recommendation, or the reasons for making no change," wrote Bob Dinneen, the president and CEO of the Renewable Fuel Association, in the letter.
In other words, the group says that CARB was required to address data submitted by the ethanol industry that took issue with the agency's determination of carbon intensity values for biofuels.
"CARB's decision to exclude this information from its analysis resulted in an LCFS [low-carbon fuel standard] regulation that creates an erroneous view of corn ethanol that is significantly disconnected from reality," said Dinneen in the complaint. "The agency failed to provide any justification in the final statement of reasons for ignoring this information from stakeholders."
Specifically, Dinneen said the air board set up a stacked deck against ethanol "by not examining the indirect, price-induced [greenhouse gas] effects of other fuels."
To the ethanol lobby, this means the administrative judge has to reject the rule and send it back to the air board. If that does not occur, a spokesman at the Renewable Fuel Association said the group retains the right to fight the low-carbon fuel standard by other means, including suing in state court.
A CARB spokesman declined comment and said attorneys were reviewing the letter.
The letter comes a day after researchers at Stanford University published research that found ethanol is more likely than gasoline to generate ozone and ozone-related health problems. Renewable Fuel Association took issue with those findings as well.
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