WASHINGTON, DC – In a court brief filed against American ethanol, Brazilian sugarcane ethanol is defending a low-carbon formula that is based on a flawed formula that grossly overestimates theoretical “indirect land use change” (ILUC) penalties on U.S.-made grain ethanol – when ILUC itself has yet to be proven as fact.
UNICA, a trade association for the Brazilian ethanol industry, filed a “friend of court” brief against America’s renewable fuel industry in a lawsuit involving California’s low-carbon fuel standard. Growth Energy, the coalition of U.S. ethanol industries, had filed that lawsuit in conjunction with the Renewable Fuel Association and several farming organizations.
“The foreign interests that would stand to gain under California’s flawed low-carbon fuel standard are rushing to defend it – despite the fact that ILUC is far from certain, and despite new evidence that the California Air Resources Board’s use of a Purdue University formula estimating ILUC was wrong. And that evidence comes from the very university that designed the formula,” said Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy.
Last week, Purdue University agricultural economics professor Wallace E. Tyner released a study showing that CARB significantly overestimated corn ethanol’s ILUC emissions by more than twice as much.
“Growth Energy can support a low-carbon fuel standard when it is done right. As we’ve said all along, CARB’s formula is deeply flawed because it relies on a controversial concept – ILUC – that is far from proven. We believe CARB should start over,” Buis said. “All the data we submitted to CARB shows that there is far too much uncertainty about ILUC to make it part of regulation. It is a flawed theory that has not been proven by science, and we have submitted thousands of pages of documents to California proving that.”
In a news release touting their defense of CARB’s flawed LCFS, UNICA referred to the “exhaustive study” that CARB had gone through. However, between the new Tyner report and the release earlier of e-mails and correspondence by CARB staff and consultants that show a bias against U.S. ethanol, the basis for CARB’s work has to be questioned.
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About Growth Energy
Growth Energy is a group committed to the promise of agriculture and growing America’s economy through cleaner, greener energy. Growth Energy members recognize America needs a new ethanol approach. Through smart policy reform and a proactive grassroots campaign, Growth energy promotes reducing greenhouse gas emissions, expanding the use of ethanol in gasoline, decreasing our dependence on foreign oil, and creating American jobs at home. More information can be found at GrowthEnergy.org.