The American Clean Energy and Security Act-the climate change bill passed by the House-includes language that would alter the “indirect land use change” penalty provisions of the 2007 energy law. In a nutshell, it exempts ethanol from indirect-land-use analysis for five years and subjects the theory to further study.
Tom Buis is the CEO of the ethanol advocacy group Growth Energy. “The precedence is so dangerous for American agriculture,” Buis says, “to say you’re going to make your farming decisions and you’re going to make your energy decisions based on how other countries farm or utilize land use changes, not based upon what’s best for this country.”
Buis is hopeful the indirect land use change language will be included in the Senate version of the bill. But he says Growth Energy will continue to seek other legislative vehicles to remove the provision.
“We’re not just going to sit back and count on one strategy or another,” says Buis. “We’re going to pursue all of them. The appropriations process could be an avenue that might be pursuable. Chairman Peterson has long talked about just moving stand-alone legislation and we’d love to get behind that.”
And if the indirect land use change rule is not ultimately removed by Congress? “I think it threatens the production of ethanol and biodiesel, and how we farm in America,” Buis says.
Buis expects the Senate to work on health insurance before tackling climate change legislation.
News conference-Tom Buis comments (7 min MP3)
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