Legislation seeks to exclude indirect land use change from RFS2 rulemaking

Ethanol Producer Magazine June 2009
By Erin Voegele
Web exclusive posted May 19, 2009, at 5:00 p.m. CST

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and Ranking Member Frank Lucas, R-Okla., along with a bipartisan group of 42 members of Congress recently introduced legislation that seeks alter certain provisions of the Renewable Fuel Standard.

The legislation, titled the Renewable Fuel Standard Improvement Act (H.R. 2409), would eliminate the requirement that the U.S. EPA consider indirect land use when calculating the greenhouse gas emissions associated with advanced biofuels. It also strikes the restrictive definition of renewable biomass that was included in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, and replaces it with the definition included in the 2008 Farm Bill. According to the House Agriculture Committee, the Farm Bill definition of renewable biomass was developed in consultation with appropriate federal agencies and other congressional committees and was discussed and debated in a transparent manner, unlike the EISA definition, which was never openly discussed or debated in Congress.

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