25x’25

President Obama and members of his Biofuels Interagency Working Group are to be applauded for actions announced this week that will reinforce the vital role that biofuels will play in our nation’s energy future. The administration unveiled on Wednesday steps they say will boost the development of biofuels and generate billions of dollars in additional revenue for rural America.

As welcome as these decisions are, it is important to note that biofuels are only one part of a larger set of renewable energy and energy efficiency tools that need to be implemented to achieve a clean energy future. Wednesday’s announcements are an integral step toward a comprehensive energy policy that can maximize the contributions offered by U.S. farms, ranches and forestlands to enhance our energy independence, boost our economy and improve our environment.

The final rule adopted by EPA this week to implement the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) set in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act  correctly recognizes that high-efficiency, first-generation ethanol can, and will continue to, contribute to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. While many in the biofuels industry question the validity of the agency’s use of Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC – the clearing of land in other countries to grow crops theoretically displaced in the United States by energy crop production), EPA officials say they enhanced their scientific research to include updated productivity findings.

The agency and Administrator Lisa Jackson, a member of the working group, wisely broadened the scope of the research to cover wider spectrum of countries impacted by ILUC (from 40 to 160) and took into account more recent crop yield and land productivity numbers. The agency’s use of updated, and in Jackson’s words, “better” science now establishes that high-efficiency corn ethanol meets the RFS threshold of reducing the level of greenhouse gases emitted by gasoline by more than 20 percent. The latest research also saw an improvement in numbers for soy biodiesel, which now will be able to qualify for the advanced RFS subcategory, biomass-based diesel.

Stakeholders also should be encouraged by the administration’s announced intent to revamp its biofuels strategy. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday that a framework was being implemented to eliminate the overlap of agencies in charge of various aspects of biofuel development, production and marketing, and promised to remove the logistical, financial and technological challenges faced by the burgeoning biofuels industry.

The resulting “Lead Agency” strategy appropriately gives USDA the lead on feedstock production and continuing financing for first-generation biofuels and scaling advanced biofuels. USDA and EPA lead jointly on sustainability and regulatory compliance. And USDA and DOE will lead jointly on the full-scale deployment of commercial facilities. DOE will drive advanced biofuel research.

Also among a package of energy-related proposals issued by the White House is a welcome proposal that should reinvigorate USDA’s Biomass Crop Assistance Program and boost funding to matching payments to agriculture and forest land owners and operators for the biomass materials they sell to conversion facilities for the production of heat, power, bio-based products or advanced biofuels.

The administration’s demonstrated support for biofuel production is an important signal to investors that solutions from the land provide valuable and sustainable returns. At the same time, the White House and Congress are urged to maintain the momentum of this week’s actions and quickly adopt a comprehensive, long-term energy policy that encompasses the full range of low-carbon and carbon-free energy resources needed to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, generate jobs and stimulate the economy, and reduce emissions that threaten our productivity and our ecosystems.

25x'25 Policy/Funding Agriculture, Biofuels, Carbon, cellulosic, clean energy, Congress, DOE, Emissions, EPA, Forestry, GHGs, green jobs, greenhouse gases, Obama Administration, renewable energy, Sustainability, USDA

Nearly 100 national organizations, including 25x’25, have joined together to make this Clean Energy Week. By working together to produce a high-impact week of powerful and effective activities and events, the organizations are maximizing their efforts to move clean energy to the forefront of national policy. President Obama’s State of the Union address last week underscored the need to put into place those long-term and stable policies and funding that accelerate the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

“The nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy,” Obama told Congress and the country last Wednesday night, exhibiting the conviction that clean energy solutions are essential components of job creation and economic growth. While the case can be made that the United States is moving in the right direction, when compared to the initiatives undertaken in other nations, there is a long way to go. As the president emphatically noted, China, India and Germany, among others, are not standing still. They, too, are striving for first place in the race to a global clean energy economy, putting more emphasis on math and science, and rebuilding their infrastructure.

The New York Times recently pointed out that multinational corporations are exploiting the boom in China’s commitment to renewable energy, locating large manufacturing facilities there with the best technology available. The Chinese government says it wants to increase the share of its electricity generation met by renewable sources from the four percent currently provided by wind, solar and biomass to 8 percent by 2020.

On the positive side of the equation, Congress has adopted as a national goal the 25x’25 Vision  – meeting 25 percent of our nation’s energy needs with renewable resources from our farms, ranches and forestlands by 2025. There have been positive steps toward reaching that goal. On a national scale, Congress earlier this year approved the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, which includes an estimated $36 billion that the White House says will double the nation’s capacity to manufacture wind turbines, solar panels and other clean energy components in three years, while also doubling its renewable energy generation by 2012. And yesterday the President unveiled his fiscal 2011 budget proposal, which included a nearly five-percent funding increase for DOE energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.

More specific examples of forward progress include last week’s opening of the DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol LLC and University of Tennessee-Genera Energy LLC cellulosic ethanol demonstration facility that can produce 250,000 gallons of biofuels made from agricultural residue and bioenergy crops like switchgrass (commercial production is planned for 2012); and the location in rural Texas of the world’s largest wind farm, Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center, with 421 turbines that have the capacity to generate 735 megawatts.

Still, to make these achievements and others more than individual parts of a scattershot effort to boost our economy, enhance our energy security and improve our environment, there is a clear, national imperative to enact comprehensive, long-term and stable clean energy policy. It is only the assurance that can be provided by a long-term commitment from our national leadership that will enable a wide variety of clean energy programs to create vast numbers of new jobs, ensure U.S. global leadership in the emerging clean energy era, enhance our security and preserve our planet for future generations.

25x'25 Policy/Funding 25x'25 Vision, Agriculture, anaerobic digestion, Biofuels, Biomass, Carbon, cellulosic, clean energy, Climate Change, Congress, DOE, Efficiency, ethanol, Farms, Forestry, Geothermal, green jobs, House of Representatives, national security, renewable energy, Research, Senate, Solar, Sustainability, switchgrass, USDA, Wind

In his State of the Union address last night, President Obama discussed how investments in clean energy will create jobs, rebuild the economy and improve the environment. 25x’25 applauds the President for challenging the nation to be the global leader in a clean energy economy and urges Congress to act on his call for expanded incentives to stimulate the production of additional “home-grown” energy.

Farms, ranches and forestlands can be sustainably managed to achieve the goals of food and energy security, poverty reduction, climate change and environmental enhancement. To maximize the role that agriculture and forestry can play in meeting these objectives three things need to happen.

First, our nation needs long term, stable and predictable energy, food and environmental policies that that provide greater predictability and incentivize sustainable solutions from the land.

For example, Congress needs to immediately and retroactively extend the biodiesel tax incentive that’s included in a pending tax credit extension bill. In 2009, the $1-per-gallon biodiesel tax incentive helped support 23,000 green, biodiesel industry jobs. Yet, when the incentive lapsed at the end of the year, domestic production has essentially ceased, with some plants laying off employees and others are facing bankruptcy.

Lawmakers should also grant long-term extensions for a series of Production Tax Credits that boost renewable energy markets. For example, the placed-in-service sunset date for wind projects to qualify for federal tax credits now stands at Dec. 31, 2012, while the placed-in-service sunset dates for closed-loop biomass, open-loop biomass, geothermal, landfill gas, waste-to-energy and qualified hydropower facilities is now set for Dec. 31, 2013. To insure adequate research and investment, Congress can extend those sunset dates well into the decade.

Second, policy makers and stakeholders must recognize that energy, food and environmental policies are intertwined and intersect at the farm gate. Policies must be designed to operate in harmony.

Third, the agriculture and forestry sectors should be viewed and engaged as solution providers to our nation’s energy and climate issues, rather than a source of problems. At the same time, as major stakeholders in a clean energy future, agricultural and forestry stakeholders must come together and offer constructive suggestions to meet these national priorities.

This is a critical time in our nation. We are on the cusp of a revolution in the way we power our vehicles, heat and cool our homes, light our streets. We all realize that we must reduce our dependence on foreign oil and invest in energy solutions that create jobs and rebuild our economy. What we must not loose sight of is the full range of opportunities for farms, ranches and forestlands to contribute to the new, global clean energy economy that the United States seeks to lead.

U.S. agriculture and forestry can produce food, feed and fiber and critically needed energy and environmental services. We ask the White House and Congress to recognize the vital role our farms, ranches and forests play in delivering these solutions from the land and create the incentives the sectors need to carry out this mission.

25x'25 Policy/Funding Agriculture, Biofuels, Carbon, cellulosic, clean energy, Congress, Efficiency, Emissions, ethanol, Farms, Forestry, Geothermal, GHGs, green jobs, greenhouse gases, Obama Administration, renewable energy, Solar, Sustainability, switchgrass, Wind

The value of biofuels as a homegrown energy source that can provide an economic boost while improving the environment was underscored this week with the release of a report showing that next generation biofuels grown in the Chesapeake Bay area could create thousands of jobs and reduce millions of pounds of runoff to the bay.

The report, Chesapeake Biofuel Policies: Balancing Energy, Economy and Environment, was issued by the Chesapeake Bay Commission and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The analysis demonstrates the kinds of real and quantifiable benefits that biofuels can bring to many regions in the country, providing states make the very near-term policy decisions needed to an enhance already growing economic opportunities.

While “biofuels” is a broad term that covers several forms of energy derived from plant materials, the report focuses on growing and processing perennial grasses and fast-growing, short-rotation woody biomass crops such as poplar and willow trees.

The report’s authors, a multidisciplinary team of economists, scientists, and other experts, found that farms, forests and landfills in the Chesapeake Bay area could conservatively  produce about a 500 million gallons of next generation of biofuels per year (roughly equivalent to a six-week supply of gasoline for the DC metro area), using only land resources and practices that improve water quality throughout the region.

The authors also say that raising the crops, refining the fuel and getting it to market would support about 18,500 jobs, from construction jobs needed to build biorefineries to on-farm production jobs needed to grow and harvest the cellulosic feedstocks that produce fuel and power.

Furthermore, raising the feedstocks for second-generation cellulosic biofuels on suitable land in the region would reduce water pollution from fertilizers by millions of pounds.

An important point made by the study is that any gains in jobs and environmental benefits made from increased biofuel production would not come at the expense of working farms or forests. The study demonstrates that policy makers can take the steps needed to accelerate the development of second generation biofuels without fear of limiting farmland currently in food or livestock production, or forests currently used for wood products.

Other states and regions can extrapolate for their own use from the report a series of policy recommendations that will enhance their own biofuel markets, including the establishment of state-specific production goals. The authors also say it’s important to implement policies that set biomass harvest guidelines, encourage winter crops as biofuel feedstocks and avoid the introduction of invasive species. And they call for the creation of an agency that will bring jurisdictions of the region together to promote collaboration and integrate the issues of biofuels and environmental improvement with other regional priorities such as agricultural and forest sustainability.

Over the past two years, Chesapeake Bay area officials have taken the steps necessary to position the region as a national leader in the evolution to sustainable advanced biofuels. Other states and regions should consider taking their own steps that can create major advances for economic growth through renewable energy, without reducing production of food, livestock, or wood products on working farms or forests.

25x'25 Energy Resources 25x'25 Vision, Agriculture, Biofuels, Biomass, Carbon, cellulosic, clean energy, Emissions, ethanol, Farms, Forestry, GHGs, green jobs, Livestock, Research, State Agencies, Sustainability, switchgrass