Draft EPA report: Biofuels threaten habitat, water quality

The Hill
By Ben Geman - 01/28/11 11:25 AM ET

A draft Environmental Protection Agency report concludes that expanded production of renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel carries an array of ecological risks in the U.S. and other nations, and calls for improved policies to mitigate these harms.

The report is required under a 2007 energy law that vastly increased the national biofuels mandate but also called for new analysis of the ecological effects of expanded development.

The draft finds, for instance, that growing biofuels crops can affect water quality through erosion and fertilizer runoff, among other factors.

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