RFS Biomass Amendment Fails In House

Despite the best efforts of the Forest Coalition that includes the American Loggers Council, an amendment to the EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) that would have modified the definition of renewable biomass while clarifying allowable sources of renewable biomass failed on a close 216-210 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives in late April.

The amendment would have clarified that a variety of forest products manufacturing residuals meet the definition, plus “trees, shrubs and parts of trees” and logging slash and storm debris, as well as material generated by wildland-interface wildfire reduction projects. A big part of the amendment was confirming that raw materials from private, national forest and other public federal lands were eligible to meet the definition of renewable biomass.

Interestingly, the pulp and paper segment of the forest products industry came out opposed to the RFS amendment, claiming expanded definitions of renewable biomass and expanded markets for biomass have the potential to raise log costs for pulp and paper mills.

In a letter to congressional staffers, the American Forest & Paper Assn. (AF&PA) claimed that the proposed RFS amendments “put pulp and paper mills at risk, and the AF&PA strongly opposes them.”

Responding to AF&PA’s position in a letter to the same staffers, ALC Executive Vice President Scott Dane pointed out that the incomplete biomass definition in the original RFS enacted in 2007 has been a big obstacle to fully developing advanced and cellulosic renewable biofuels.

Dane also noted that a big reason for the proposal is the actions of the pulp and paper industry itself, and perhaps the biggest threat to pulp and paper mill jobs is in fact pulp and paper companies: In the past 12 years 35 pulp and paper mills have closed at a cost of thousands of direct and indirect jobs–and more than 20% of remaining log-receiving paper mills are at high risk of closure. At the same time, the pulp and paper industry has walked away from 50 million tons of delivered logs every year. (EDITOR’S NOTE: And we don’t remember any of them citing log costs as a reason for a closure.)

Dane correctly stated that the argument the amendment would raise log costs “defies common sense,” since new biomass ventures would be likely to seek opportunity in the timber baskets and rural communities that pulp and paper have already abandoned. Instead of increased pulp and paper log costs, such operations would “bring much-needed relief to depressed rural economies abandoned by mill closures.”

On the House floor, 37 Democrats supported the amendment while 40 Republicans voted against it. Nine reps didn’t vote at all.

In a statement, the ALC thanked representatives Bentz (Ore.), Westerman (Ark.), Scott (Ga.), Fulcher (Id.) and Stauber (Minn.) who sponsored the amendment, and those members who voted for it. The ALC’s Forest Coalition partners, including the National Alliance of Forest Owners, American Biomass Energy Assn., Forest Landowners Assn., Association of Consulting Foresters and Society of American Foresters, led a strong and coordinated effort to advance the issue and showed what is possible when all sectors of the industry come together, the statement said.

“While this amendment did not pass,the need for new markets and policy solutions remains urgent,” Dane said in a statement. “This was a close vote, and a clear signal that momentum is building.”

Created under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and expanded under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a federal program that requires transportation fuel sold to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel. It was established to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, decrease reliance on imported oil, and promote the domestic renewable fuels sector.