RENEWABLE BIOMASS AND EPA

(Mr. SCHRADER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Mr. SCHRADER. Madam Speaker, America has tremendous potential for renewable energy production. Indeed, these are the jobs of our future.

One of the most important renewable energy sources for Oregon that binds rural and urban communities is the production of energy from forestry and agricultural byproducts, otherwise known as renewable biomass.

Unfortunately, it would appear that EPA is rewriting the rules in direct contravention to the intent of this Congress. In their final tailoring rule for regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, the EPA ignores hundreds of studies and precedents from their own research that biomass combustion is indeed carbon neutral. This contradicts what was also included in the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which passed out of this very body.

Despite the tremendous benefit to engage our rural farmers and foresters to play a role in our renewable energy future, EPA has decided to legislate instead of administrate. Through this tailoring role, they are doing their best to alienate rural America and deny them the opportunity to be a part of our renewable future.

Congressional Record (5/27/2010; p. H3873)

“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.

###

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.

Statement of Brian J. Kernohan
Manager of Wildlife and Forest Stewardship
Forest Capital Partners, LLC, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
Field hearing to review U.S. agriculture policy in advance of the 2012 Farm Bill
U.S. House Committee on Agriculture
May 1, 2010

I. Introduction

Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to appear before the House Committee on Agriculture today and review U.S. agriculture policy as you prepare for the 2012 Farm Bill.

I am pleased to appear before you today as a private lands manager.  I am the Manager of Wildlife and Forest Stewardship for Forest Capital Partners.  Forest Capital Partners owns and manages 2.1 million acres across the United States and is the second largest private landowner in Idaho, managing 280,000 acres in the northern six counties of Idaho.  Our lands are managed sustainably and are certified as such by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative®.  Our primary management objectives on our lands are to (1) sustainably enhance forest productivity and health while creating environmental benefits and (2) provide economic benefits to the company, mills, and community based on long-term sustainability.

While we have 22 direct employees in Idaho earning a total of $3.2 million per year, we contract with 40 contractors who employ over 150 people, generating contractor payments of approximately $26 million per year.  We pay $1 million a year in state and local taxes in Idaho.  We harvest between 60-100 million board feet of timber each year that supplies 20 mills, and we complete site preparation and reforestation on approximately 7,500 annually.

II. Working Forests

At Forest Capital Partners, we aspire to be a leader in creating and capturing the full range of values from our forests.  We recognize that forests provide social and environmental values in addition to economic. In fact, much like farms and ranches, private, working forests are a vital part of America’s natural resources infrastructure.  In addition to products that improve our quality of life, whether two-by-fours for homes, household paper products or furniture, they provide clean air and water, wildlife habitat, open space, recreation opportunities, and an economic base for rural communities.  They also offer solutions to some of our nation’s most pressing issues: domestic, renewable energy; a natural means of removing carbon from the atmosphere; and stable jobs that support American families.

These benefits come primarily from America’s private forests.  The United State has 755 million acres of forests – an amount that is roughly the same today as it was 100 years ago – 57 percent, or 427 million acres, is owned by over 10 million private landowners.  America’s private landowners are managing their land well and are consistently growing more than we harvest.  Over the past 50 years, growing stock in our forests increased 49 percent.[1]

These healthy, productive forests support American families.  According to a recent study conducted by the National Alliance of Forest Owners, private forests in the U.S. support 2.5 million direct, indirect, and induced jobs and $87 billion in payroll in the 29 states covered by the study.  Here in Idaho, private, working forests support 30,412 jobs, $891 million in payroll, $9 million in state income taxes, $2 billion in sales, and $847 million towards Idaho’s GDP.[2]

The contributions from private, working forests are noticed at the national level.  A diverse cross-section of interests recognizing the value of working forests have come together to support policies to promote working forests at the national level.  The platform of this group, which calls itself the “Working Forests Coalition,” states that “Sustaining and enhancing the value of private working forests both to society and to forest owners is of vital national importance and essential to meet some of our nation’s most pressing needs.”  I submit for the record the platform of the group as presented to USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack, and urge to Committee to consider the elements of this platform when developing policies affecting working landscapes.

III. Markets Conserve Forests

Central to this coalition’s message – and my message today – is that the most effective means to conserve private forests is to ensure viable markets for forest products exist.   Working forests depend on strong and dependable existing and new markets for forest-derived products and services. Such markets benefit society, the environment and forest owners alike, because they put forest owners in an economic position that supports continued investment in sound forest management over the long term. Without these markets, economic pressures may force private forest lands into other, more economically competitive uses.

Markets supporting working forests change and evolve over time.  We see that here in the Northwest as pulp and paper facilities have significantly declined in number.  As the marketplace changes it is important that we foster new opportunities that will provide the markets of tomorrow.  America now stands at the cusp of two such markets that may play an important role in conserving working forests: renewable energy and carbon.

IV. Energy from Renewable Forest Biomass is Beneficial and Sustainable

As the Committee develops the elements of the next Farm Bill, we urge the inclusion of an energy title that further supports the use of biomass energy from forests and croplands to produce new sources of renewable energy and derivative bio-based products as an important means of both meeting our nation’s energy needs and conserving working landscapes.

Renewable energy from wood is domestic, renewable, sustainable, and does not increase carbon in the atmosphere.  For decades, the forest product industry has produced electricity and heat from biomass.  In fact, the forest products industry produces more energy from biomass than all the energy produced from solar, wind, and geothermal sources combined.  Additionally, technology is being commercialized to produce low-carbon liquid transportation fuels and ultra-low-carbon synthetic natural gas that can be substituted for higher carbon sources of electricity and fuels.

The 2008 Farm Bill recognized the value and sustainability of energy from renewable forest biomass by enacting a broad definition for what qualifies as renewable forest biomass for energy.  We thank this committee for its strong leadership in supporting this approach in last year’s debates on the Waxman-Markey legislation.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture also supports a broad biomass definition and joins this committee as an advocate for this approach in future renewable energy legislation.  I would like to submit for the record an exchange of letters between a large coalition supporting a broad biomass definition and Secretary Vilsack from earlier this year.  I would like to also submit for the record an April 20, 2010 letter from 98 organizations to Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman supporting a broad renewable biomass definition.

As Congress debates new renewable energy policy, we urge the Committee to continue its leadership in providing new economic opportunities for working lands within the parameters of existing federal, state and local laws, programs and partnerships that support the sustainable management of working lands.  Private forests operate within a framework of federal, state and local forest practices that has been tailored over the course of decades to local conditions and needs and has been central to helping the United States be a world leader in sustainable forest practices.  To help increase awareness of this framework, I would like to provide the Committee a white paper on environmental regulation of private forests in the U.S.

V. Supporting Working Forests can Help Address Concerns about Climate Change

As the nation continues to wrestle with the issue of climate change, we wish to remind the Committee of the important role of working forests in addressing concerns about carbon in the atmosphere.  The trees we grow absorb and store carbon naturally and turn it into a variety of public benefits.  Currently our forests absorb 15 percent of our nation’s annual emissions.[3] Through proper management, increasing use of long-term wood products, and using wood for energy, U.S. forests can do even more.  Work done by the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials documented how managed forests can produce sustained, overall net emissions reductions when carbon is stored in wood products like fence posts and kitchen tables and when wood is substituted for building products that require significantly more energy to produce.[4]

As the U.S. looks for ways to establish a balanced approach to reducing carbon emissions, domestic, working forests offer a natural, sustainable, and economic solution that not only improves our carbon footprint, but helps the rest of the environment as well while providing jobs and greater security in rural communities.

VI. Private/public Partnerships can Further Conservation Goals

President Teddy Roosevelt said, “Conservation means development as much as it does protection.” He understood that while viable markets are the most critical component to conserving private forests, public and private investments can help meet public goals to maintain working landscapes.  These investments can include both direct investments in forest management and conservation and investments in the infrastructure that supports forest stewardship and market development. Market-oriented private/public investments are frequently the most effective.

As Forest Capital Partners seeks to create and capture the full range of economic, social, and environmental values from forests, we recognize that sustainably managed working forests provide important wildlife habitat and support local communities with jobs and revenue at the same time.  The Forest Legacy program also recognizes this, and it is an important source of funding to help conserve the economic, social, and environmental values of forests.  In fact, we are currently working with the Nature Conservancy to utilize Forest Legacy funding to conserve an important wildlife migration corridor in North Idaho.

Forest Legacy, the Healthy Forest Reserve Program, and other private/public partnerships to conserve land are an important tool for landowners and the public in their conservation efforts.  We urge the Committee to continue to support and strengthen these and other private/public programs to help conserve working forests.

Conclusion

Forest Capital Partners appreciates the Committee’s track record of supporting private, working forests, recognizing the conservation value of markets, and entrusting the existing framework of federal, state, local, and third-party laws, regulations, and agreements to sustain private forestry operations.

As the Committee looks ahead to the 2012 Farm Bill and other forest legislation and oversight, we look forward to working with you on how best to conserve working forests as forests.

[1] State of America’s Forests. Society of American Foresters. 2007.
[2] The Economic Impact of Privately-Owned Forests. Forest2Market and the National Alliance of Forest Owners. 2009.  Available online at www.nafoalliance.org/economic-impact-report/.
[3] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  2009.  Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2007.
[4] See Bruce Lipke et al., CORRIM: Life-Cycle Environmental Performance of Renewable Building Materials, 54 Forest Prod. J. 8 (2004).

Reid Miner, Vice President of Sustainable Manufacturing, and Al Lucier, Senior Vice President, from NCASI presented on the science and practical contexts of biomass carbon emissions. Roger Martella, Partner at Sidley Austin, provided an update about the implications of biomass carbon neutrality in federal rulemakings.

NAFO joined a coalition of partners to urge Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman to include forests and farms as a significant part of their comprehensive energy and climate change legislation.

Below is the entire letter.

American Bird Conservancy * American Electric Power *American Forest and Paper Association * American Forest Foundation * Avoided Deforestation Partners * Coalition for Emission Reduction Projects * Conservation Forestry * Conservation International * Dominion * Duke Energy * Environmental Defense Fund * Green Diamond Resource Company * Hardwood Federation * Maine Forest Service * Marriott International * National Alliance of Forest Owners * National Association of State Foresters * National Farmers Union * National Wildlife Federation * New Forests * NorthWestern Energy * Ohio Corn Growers Association * Pacific Forest Trust * PG&E Corporation * Pinchot Institute * Sierra Club * Society of American Foresters * The Nature Conservancy * Trust for Public Land * Union of Concerned Scientists * Wildlife Conservation Society

March 22, 2010

The Honorable John Kerry
218 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Lindsey Graham
290 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Joseph Lieberman
706 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman,

Thank you for all your hard work to secure action on energy and climate change. We strongly believe that any successful comprehensive energy and climate change legislation must include forests and farms as a significant part of the solution. By providing an affordable means to address climate change, public and private incentives (such as offsets) for forests and farms can help Americans save money while leading the way to a low carbon economy.

American agriculture can play a major role in sequestering carbon and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Providing strong incentives to American farms and ranches can help feed and fuel the world and do it in a way that involves American agriculture in the energy and climate solution – while bringing increased prosperity to rural America.

American forests, including working forests and wood, already sequester about one eighth of U.S. carbon emissions, with the potential for much more. Strong incentives for reforestation, sustainable forest management, and forest conservation will create jobs and safeguard America’s energy future.

Conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of tropical forests must also play a significant role. By providing public and private incentives for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation activities (REDD), we can address the 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that come from tropical deforestation while helping keep energy costs affordable for U.S. agriculture, forest products industries, and consumers. Protecting these forests will also help level the playing field for U.S. agriculture and forest products industries by reducing illegal logging and forest conversion in tropical countries, ensuring fair competition in wood, pulp, beef, leather, soybeans, and other global markets.

We look forward to working with you to ensure that forests, farms and ranches help deliver an effective and affordable solution to climate change and a new energy future.

Sincerely,

American Bird Conservancy
American Electric Power
American Forest and Paper Association
American Forest Foundation
Avoided Deforestation Partners
Coalition for Emission Reduction Projects
Conservation Forestry
Conservation International
Dominion
Duke Energy
Environmental Defense Fund
Green Diamond Resource Company
Hardwood Federation
Maine Forest Service
Marriott International
National Alliance of Forest Owners
National Association of State Foresters
National Farmers Union
National Wildlife Federation
New Forests
NorthWestern Energy
Ohio Corn Growers Association
Pacific Forest Trust
PG&E Corporation
Pinchot Institute
Sierra Club
Society of American Foresters
The Nature Conservancy
Trust for Public Land
Union of Concerned Scientists
Wildlife Conservation Society

CC: Senator Harry Reid
Senator Debbie Stabenow
Senator Maria Cantwell
Senator Susan Collins
Senator Michael Bennet
Senator Jeanne Shaheen

Read and download the paper, Renewable Energy from America’s Forest: Achieving Our Nation’s Economic, Environmental, and Energy Goals.

WASHINGTON, DC – The National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO) today praised the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its efforts to include forest biomass as a source of transportation fuels in its final rule implementing the Federal Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), and called upon Congress to fix the flawed definition in the Standard excluding most renewable forest biomass from the program.

David P. Tenny, President and CEO of NAFO, said, “The EPA has taken positive steps to enable forest owners to participate in the renewable transportation fuel market.  Unfortunately, the agency’s hands are tied under a statutory definition of biomass disqualifying as much as 90% of our nation’s private forests from contributing.  This policy forfeits the carbon benefits of transportation fuels made from renewable forest biomass, which reduce carbon emissions by over ninety percent compared to gasoline.”

Sustainable working forests are a primary tool to reduce GHG emissions, as recognized by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  The IPCC states, “In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fiber or energy from the forest, will generate the greatest mitigation benefit.”

NAFO urged Congress to adopt a more inclusive definition of renewable forest biomass, such as that appearing in the House passed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 in place of the overly narrow approach taken in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which established the RFS.  There are presently at least four different definitions of qualifying forest biomass in federal statute, adding complexity, confusion and cost to implementing federal policy and reducing the resulting environmental benefits, including benefits to forests from new investment in quality forest management.

Tenny stressed, “By excluding private forests as a part of our nation’s renewable energy strategy, the EISA  biomass  definition forecloses a critical part of the solution to reducing our dependence on foreign, high carbon sources of fuel.  That hurts the quality of our air, the energy independence of our nation and the ability of forest owners to invest in long term health of their forests.”

###

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.

The National Alliance of Forest Owners is a national organization dedicated to advancing the environmental and economic benefits of private forests.  Our membership represents over 75 million acres of private forests in 47 states.  As a point of reference, this acreage is larger than the state of Arizona, the sixth largest state.

Forest owners occupy a unique position in the policy discussion on climate change and renewable energy, because our business model is to remove carbon from the atmosphere and turn it into public benefits – from carbon sequestration to energy to consumer products we all use every day.  All of this has been done while maintaining the same amount of forestland in the United States for the past 100 years.  In fact, over the last 50 years, standing inventory in our forests has grown by 49 percent[1].

We have achieved this while continuing to provide benefits all Americans enjoy: homes, furniture, books, paper, pencils and hundreds of other products that improve our quality of life, recreation opportunities, open space, clean air, abundant and clean water, wildlife habitat, and the list goes on.

This puts our forests in the position to make significant contributions to our nation’s climate and energy goals.  NAFO’s position is that we should utilize the full potential of our forests to address our nation’s climate change and renewable energy priorities.

First, America’s private forests can provide renewable energy that replaces foreign sources of energy, or energy that puts geologic carbon in the atmosphere, with an energy source that is renewable and domestic, and that recycles the carbon it uses.

Second, we can provide carbon offsets to greenhouse gas emissions through forest management practices that can remove increasing amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and through the products we produce, like wood for homes, that store carbon for long periods of time.

Consider these facts:

• Forests in the United States, nearly 60% of which are privately owned, remove almost 200 million metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year[2], offsetting about 10% of our annual fossil fuel emissions[3].
• The EPA estimates that the amount of carbon stored annually in forest products in the U.S. is equivalent to removing more than 100 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year[4].
• Research on private forestlands has shown that more intensively managed forests and the products they produce can sequester and store as much as 150% more tons of carbon per acre than less intensively managed forests[5].

Finally, private forests produce and retain family-wage jobs and strengthen the overall economy.  NAFO researched the economic impact of working forests in 29 states and found that, on average, private, working forests:

• Sustain 8 jobs for every 1,000 acres under management
• Produce $270 in payroll for every acre
• Generate $733 in sales for every acre
• Contribute $318 to the GDP for every acre.

All told, that is 2.5 million jobs, $87 billion in payroll, $235 billion in sales, and $102 billion in contributions to the GDP.  And our private forests can do this while continuing to provide the many public benefits they have always provided our nation.

It is no wonder that the International Panel on Climate Change has stated that, “In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fiber or energy from the forest, will generate the greatest mitigation benefit”[6] for climate change. Similarly, the EPA has identified responsibly managed forests as one of five key “groups of strategies that could substantially reduce emissions between now and 2030”.[7]

We appreciate the leadership of Senator Stabenow, D-MI, who recognizes and advocates for the many contributions our working forests can and should make in climate and energy policy.

Ultimately, Congress will determine the timing of legislation to address climate change and to further build the renewable energy capabilities of our nation.  When they do, we stand ready to make a full contribution to the effort and urge policy makers to recognize and fully utilize all of the benefits our private, working forests can offer.

[3] Birdsey, R., K. Pregitzer, and A. Lucier.  2006.  Forest carbon management in the United States: 1600-2100.  J. Environmental Quality 35: 1461-1469.

[4] US Environmental Protection Agency.  2007.  Inventory of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and sinks:  1990-2005. EPA 430-R-07-002.

[5]Carbon Sequestration in Californian Forests; Two Case Studies in Managed Watersheds by Dr. Cajun James, Dr. Bruce Krumland, and Dr. Penelope Jennings Eckert, December 12, 2007. http://www.spi-ind.com/html/forests_research.cfm.

[6] Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [B. Metz, O.R. Davidson, P.R. Bosch, R. Dave, L.A. Meyer (eds)], Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, page 543.

[7] Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under the CAA, 73 Fed. Reg. 44,354, 44,405 (July 30, 2008).