Thoughts from Joanne Ivancic, Executive Director, Advanced Biofuels USA. There has been a lot of controversy about “indirect land use change” analysis related to figuring out how much greenhouse gas emissions result from the production of biofuels. Looking closely at the relevant language of the legislation I conclude that a leap beyond faith with the original language is taken by EPA and others who argue—and propose in formal rule-making (“Regulation of Fuels and Fuel Additives: Changes to Renewable Fuel Standard Program”)—that EPA’s analysis must consider the possibility that global changes in land use result from the decisions of individual US energy crop growers.

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, Section 202 (a) requires the EPA administrator to revise regulations to ensure that renewable US transportation fuel achieves stated “reduction(s) in lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions compared to baseline lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.”

As defined in the Act, “The term ‘lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions’ means the aggregate quantity of greenhouse gas emissions (including direct emissions and significant indirect emissions such as significant emissions from land use changes), … related to the full fuel lifecycle, including all stages of fuel and feedstock production and distribution, from feedstock generation or extraction through the distribution and delivery and use of the finished fuel to the ultimate consumer…”

In diagramming this sentence, it is clear that the word “indirect” is an adjective modifying the word “emissions.” It does not modify the clause “land use changes.” The clause “such as significant emissions from land use changes” modifies and explicates the term “significant indirect emissions.”

Thus, the proper interpretation of the parenthetical clauses is: when calculating the aggregate quantity of greenhouse gas emissions, the EPA administrator is to include two things—direct emissions and indirect emissions. What are they?

Direct emissions are enumerated in the legislation as those “related to the full fuel lifecycle, including all stages of fuel and feedstock production and distribution, from feedstock generation or extraction through the distribution and delivery and use of the finished fuel to the ultimate consumer.”

Indirect emissions are noted to include, for example, “significant emissions from land use changes.” Certainly, if a field was used as pasture and is changed to grow switchgrass for harvesting, that would be a land use change. Any significant greenhouse gas emission change that might result from that should be included in the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions analysis, per the legislation. The greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the change in the use of the land (be they negative or positive) are not directly related to any of the enumerated direct emissions sources; they are, however, indirectly related.

In the proposed rule, EPA leaps from “indirect emissions such as significant emissions from land use changes” to “international indirect land use change,” creating this phrase which is not in the legislation. EPA then proposes that when land is taken from one use in one part of the world, identifiable and quantifiable adjustments will be made in another part of the world in response. Such a broad re-interpretation of the phrase is unwarranted. Nowhere in the legislation is the term “international indirect land use change.” “Land use change” was mentioned only as an example of a possible source of greenhouse gas emissions that would be indirectly related to the production of renewable fuels. This legislation speaks of “indirect emissions,” not “indirect land use.”

Certainly, indirect emissions could result from land use changes in other countries in the production of biofuels in those countries. It would seem reasonable to include those emissions in the lifecycle calculation, should those biofuels be imported to the U.S.

However, it is an unwarranted stretch to suggest that any change in the use of land from one purpose to another (be it from fallow field to energy crops or oil well) in one country has a predictable, measureable, emission-creating counterpart in another country, in another part of the world.

There is no justification in the legislation to include international indirect land use changes analysis in calculating the required lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions either baseline or comparative.

Related posts:

1. Growth Energy Policy Brief: California’s Dangerous Gamble with Indirect Land Use Change
2. US House Agriculture Committee Chair Vents About EPA’s Use of Indirect Land Use Effects
3. Indirect Land Use, GHGs and EPA’s Proposed RSF Rule
4. Modeling Land Use and Land Use Change in Brazil
5. Senator John Thune (R-SD) Introduces Indirect Land Use Bill