WASHINGTON, DC – David P. Tenny, President and CEO of the National Alliance of Forest Owners’ (NAFO), offered the following statement on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule, issued today:
“The EPA and the Department of Energy, through their own data collection, have long recognized that biomass combustion for energy does not increase carbon in the atmosphere. The EPA has concluded that there is a ‘scientific consensus’ that ‘carbon dioxide emitted from burning biomass will not increase CO2 in the air if it is done on a sustainable basis.’
“The United States is a world leader in sustainable forest management. As a result, our volume of growing trees has increased by nearly 50 percent over the last 50 years and each year our nation stores more carbon in its forests than it releases from them. That is why energy from forest biomass does not increase carbon in the atmosphere.
“Regulating biomass energy the same as fossil fuels would be a significant shift in federal policy and a powerful disincentive to use biomass to address our nation’s renewable energy and climate needs. The economic impacts on forest owners, mills using biomass energy and rural jobs would be significant, and the resulting devaluation of private forests could increasingly force this land into more economically competitive alternative uses with far fewer GHG mitigation benefits.
“We appreciate Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack for addressing this issue with EPA and committing to work with EPA to develop a policy that embraces biomass energy and avoids unnecessary and counterproductive regulation. We look forward to working with USDA and the EPA to harness the benefits of biomass energy as a fundamental part of our nation’s energy and climate solution.”
For more information, read NAFO’s comments to EPA on the draft rule and a white paper on biomass carbon neutrality are available.
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NAFO is an organization of private forest owners committed to advancing federal policies that promote the economic and environmental values of privately-owned forests at the national level. NAFO membership encompasses more than 75 million acres of private forestland in 47 states. View NAFO’s interactive map to see the economic impact of America’s working forests.
