Energy security, emission mandates on collision course, economist warns

In Iowa, Iowa State University economist Robert Wisner warns that the EISA Act and the EPA’s interpretation of emissions mandates are on “collision course,” and that “If changes are not made, their different paths could slow or halt the growth of some parts of the biofuels industry.”

Wisner has assembled one of the most intelligently-presented analyses of EISA, the EPA’s proposed interpretation of emissions data and land use change, and work at the  Air Resources Board of the California Environmental Protection Agency.

Wisner’s thesis is that the flaws lie within EISA itself: it “requires a gradual increase in the volume of various kinds of biofuels to be blended with U.S. motor fuels in the next several years.  The gradual increase was designed to provide time for technology development and industry growth.

At the same time, the EISA – unless modified – requires a one-step adjustment in greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, rather than a gradual phase-in to reflect less than instantaneous technological progress.  The EISA also implicitly assumes that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the baseline that is used to evaluate biofuels will be unchanged in the future.”

Wisner writes that “A key determinant of ethanol’s disadvantage in the California motor fuel market is the estimated indirect land use impact.  There is considerable disagreement in the scientific community on how to accurately assess this impact and to what extent this factor is needed.  The U.S. historically has had large grain surplus production capacity as productivity increases from new technology have outpaced food and feed demand growth” and called for urgent additional research on indirect land use change.

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