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New Fuels Alliance

101 Tremont Street, Ste 700
Boston, MA 02108
Telephone: 617.275.8215
Email: bcoleman@newfuelsalliance.org 

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New York Times Misleads (Again) on Biofuels

With presumably the best intentions, the New York Times has again misled the public on a crucial issue concerning U.S. biofuels policy.

Casting the issue as a classic industry-versus-environment smack down, the NYT tells us that the biofuels industry is causing land conversion abroad, with potential climate change consequences, but does not want to be held accountable for it by U.S. EPA.

Truth is, the issue is much more complicated than that.

First, it’s important to properly describe what the biofuels industry will in fact be held accountable for when EPA settles on a carbon score for a gallon of biofuel. All direct emissions will be counted: fuel combustion, fuel distribution, biorefinery emissions, tractor and fertilizer emissions, and yes, land conversion emissions for land that is cultivated to produce biofuel feedstock.

This last point is important. If land is cleared to produce a biofuel feedstock, the biofuel gallon will pay for the carbon impact of that land use change. Too often this debate is characterized as the biofuels industry not wanting to be held accountable for the land use impacts of making their fuel. This is not true.

The issue being debated is whether biofuels should also be made to pay for what is called indirect land use change. In theory, using land for biofuels production pushes agricultural production for food, livestock feed and consumer products to other lands. So the rainforest might be cleared to produce soybeans for a soy latte, but the NYT and fair-minded environmentalists want biofuels to pay for that too.

This is controversial for two reasons.

First, penalizing biofuel for land degradation that occurs to produce food, cattle feed, timber, or consumer products is a major decision. Ask the average person if they should pay a price for someone else’s behavior, especially when they have no control over that behavior, and you will find a predictable angst. Now ask a biofuel company that is trying to survive in an oil-dominated fuel market if they can shoulder the burden of someone else’s supply chain, when other fuels are not asked to do the same thing.

It is also controversial because the science of predicting if, when and where indirect land conversion occurs is highly uncertain. Does the displaced food production occur on idle, marginal or pristine land? Forest or prairie? Domestic or abroad? If abroad, where? What role does international and domestic policy play? Economics? Demand changes? Political unrest? Weather? Oil prices? Dollar valuation?

Casting anyone who challenges the public policy or scientific rationale of indirect land use change as self-interested biofuel zealots is superficial and unproductive. Worse yet, it is inaccurate. Some of the leading carbon lifecycle modelers in the world are raising questions about the issue. Many of the most promising advanced biofuel companies in the country have raised questions about the science.

It is one thing to advocate for doing the best we can. But it is quite another to enforce bad science against a promising sector that could very well result in less sustainable biofuel production and more foreign oil dependence. It is a fine line, but not a clear line as the NYT suggests.

There are ways to produce biofuels while protecting important ecosystems. Superficial and trite analysis from one of the nation’s leading newspapers does not help us get there.