President Obama may soon have to make a choice between his commitment to science-based policy and the support he promised the ethanol industry during his election campaign.
The Environmental Protection Agency will soon produce standards for ethanol production.
When congress mandated increasing supplies of ethanol, it stated that corn ethanol must produce 20% less greenhouse gas than gasoline and cellulosic ethanol must produce 60% less.
These percentages will be difficult to achieve if the EPA insists on full lifecycle accounting for the biofuels, including the indirect impacts of changes in land use.
The ethanol industry claims the science is not certain enough on these impacts of land use, creating another scenario in which industry and environmental groups play tug-of-war with scientific evidence.
Read the Associated Press coverage at the link below.
