New U.S. Rules Look at Biofuels' Global Impact

In 2007, Congress delivered what it thought was a big ticket solution to global climate change: a massive biofuel mandate under the banner of the Energy Independence and Security Act.

It was a gift to agribusiness and the farm lobby in the form of a 36 billion gallon biofuel production requirement that had to be met by 2022.

Since then, corn ethanol has been a boom-and-bust business, with scientific evidence calling into the question its environmental benefits and raising concern about its impact on the global food supply. 

Today, the Obama administration brought intelligence and teamwork to bear on the biofuel mess, for the first time proposing federal rules that consider the impact of U.S. biofuels on the world beyond the agribusiness lobby. And it is acknowledging that while advanced biofuels have great potential, corn ethanol is only tolerable as a bridge to the future.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced an update to the federal renewable fuels standard that favors advanced biofuels and cellulosic ethanol over corn ethanol as the volume of renewable fuels blended with transportation fuels gradually increases.

Not all biofuels will qualify, though, and that’s where Jackson’s EPA is raising the bar. The new standard will gauge each biofuel’s greenhouse gas emissions, not just at the tailpipe, but cradle to grave – and then some. 

Following California’s lead, the EPA plans to also factor in increased greenhouse gas emissions caused by what the experts call "indirect land use changes." When forests or grasslands overseas are stripped in order to grow crops to make up for U.S. cropland that was turned to biofuel, there's a price to pay.

The indirect land use changes will hit corn ethanol the hardest, as the administration was clearly aware today.

Before Jackson announced the proposed fuel rule, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack joined Energy Secretary Steven Chu in announcing $786 million in new funding plus technical assistance to help farmers and refiners shift to lower-carbon biofuels. President Obama also signed a memorandum setting up an interagency working group to create a comprehensive biofuels program with Energy, Agriculture and EPA working together to focus on sustainable development.

Fifteen billion gallons of ethanol production will be grandfathered in under the proposed rule, most of it corn ethanol. But by 2022, 21 billion gallons of the 36 billion total would have to come from advanced biofuels, biomass diesel and cellulosic biofuels.

“Corn-based ethanol is a bridge to the next generation of biofuels,” Jackson said.

Fully phased in, she said, the rule would cut the United States’ dependence of foreign oil by more than 297 million barrels a year and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 160 million tons a year.

“This is a good day for rural America,” Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, told reporters while discussing the grants that will help farms make the switch to lower-carbon biofuels.

The ethanol industry and its farm state senators aren't so sure about that. Twelve senators, including both of Iowa’s, wrote to Jackson in March urging her not to include indirect land use changes (ILUC) in the lifecycle calculations on the grounds that the models were still evolving.