May 17, 2012
The
National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO) today urged the Senate Committee
on Energy and Natural Resources to include a definition of biomass in clean
energy legislation that will promote rather than discourage the use of
biomass to meet America’s renewable energy goals. NAFO provided written testimony
for the Committee’s hearing on S. 2146, the Clean Energy Standard Act of
2012, which would create a federal mandate for sources of clean energy
beginning in 2015 with a 24 percent share of total energy production and
increasing to 82 percent in 2035.
“Forest
biomass has been recognized by the President as a key part of an ‘all of
the above’ solution to our nation’s energy needs,” said Dave Tenny,
President and CEO of NAFO. “Unfortunately, this bill discourages the use of
forest biomass in direct contradiction to that approach. By excluding forest
biomass from the definition of ‘Renewable Energy’ and inserting legally
complicated requirements, the bill creates uncertainties that will
discourage forest biomass use by making compliance too expensive and
vulnerable to lawsuits”
The bill
defines “Qualified Renewable Biomass,” using terms and criteria from
national forest management that have been the source of protracted
litigation for decades. The new definition would overlay the existing
framework of well–established federal, state and local laws, which
currently govern private forest practices.
The bill
further requires that qualified biomass be assigned a “carbon intensity
factor,” ignoring the long-standing international recognition of
sustainable biomass combustion in place of fossil fuel combustion as
beneficial for the climate.
“We have seen
how the complicated approach taken in this bill has worked on federal
lands, and we can’t afford to introduce the same legal gridlock on private
lands,” Tenny said. “Furthermore, requiring new carbon regulations for
biomass similar to approaches for fossil fuels casts biomass as though it
were part of the problem rather than the solution. Any way you look at it,
the bill writes forest biomass out of the clean energy equation.”
Tenny
concluded: “To achieve the goals of the President and the many in Congress
who recognize the important contributions of biomass energy, this
legislation must be written to invite rather than discourage forest biomass
as a renewable energy source. Otherwise it will continue or increase the
use of fossil fuels in many parts of the country, and that is not progress
toward sound, clean energy policy.”
NAFO is an
organization of private forest owners committed to advancing federal
policies that promote the economic and environmental benefits of
privately-owned forests at the national level. NAFO membership encompasses
more than 79 million acres of private forestland in 47 states. Working
forests in the U.S. support 2.5 million jobs. To see the full economic
impact of America’s working forests, visit www.nafoalliance.org/economic-impact-report.
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