California pursues low-carbon fuel constraints

* Low-carbon fuel standard would be first in nation
* Measure aims to spur alternative fuels market
* Ethanol industry says proposal is flawed, unfair

By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES, April 22 (Reuters) - California on Wednesday
is expected to adopt landmark rules to curb carbon emissions
from transportation fuels despite intense opposition from some
who say the proposal is biased against corn-based ethanol.
If adopted by the state's influential air quality
regulators, the low-carbon fuel standard would become the first
measure in the nation to impose on motor fuels limits on the
amount of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
Similar rules are under consideration in 11 other states
that are waiting for California to act. President Barack Obama
also has called for a nationwide low-carbon fuel standard to
help meet his goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions more
than 80 percent by mid-century.
California's proposal takes a sweeping "cradle-to-grave"
approach that aims to reduce the carbon footprint of fuels from
production to combustion. It also seeks to spur development of
cleaner-burning alternatives to gasoline and diesel fuels that
will help abate climate change and reduce oil imports.
Transportation alone accounts for 40 percent of greenhouse
gas emissions in California, which ranks as the nation's
leading automobile market.
"It's a model for the country and other nations in that it
provides a mechanism to move away from today's carbon-intensive
fuels towards tomorrow's cleaner, more sustainable fuels," said
Patricia Monahan, state director for the Union of Concerned
Scientists.
The new standard would require refineries, producers and
importers of motor fuels sold in California to reduce the
"carbon intensity" of their products 10 percent by 2020, with
greater cuts thereafter.

ETHANOL BIAS?
As a result, carbon emissions in California would decline
by 16 metric tons over the next decade, while the measure would
lead to 20 percent of the state's fossil fuels being replaced
by cleaner alternatives, such as electricity, hydrogen, natural
gas and biofuels.
But the proposal has drawn heavy opposition from the
beleaguered ethanol industry, which has argued that the
regulation, as drafted last month, would unfairly penalize
grain-based biofuels.
Ethanol advocates say the measure's "indirect land-use"
provisions erroneously calculate the carbon impact of such
biofuels by factoring in the clearing of forests, which store
carbon, when corn is grown on a large scale.
Critics say the land-use models are flawed and are
selectively applied to grain ethanol, putting a cleaner-burning
fuel that already is widely available at a disadvantage
compared to other alternatives still under development.
"Ethanol is not the reason for deforestation," said Doug
Berven, an executive for Poet, the largest U.S. ethanol
producer. He said deforestation in the Amazon had declined 50
percent while ethanol production grew five-fold.
California Air Resources Board spokesman Stanley Young
defended the proposed rule, denying a built-in bias against
grain fuels.
"We're not gunning for ethanol. We're gunning for carbon,"
he said. "We actually looked at 11 different ways of making
corn ethanol, and seven of those came out lower than the
standard, so we believe that corn ethanol has an important role
to play."
Supporters of the measure say the new rule also would give a
boost to low-carbon fuels made from nonfood sources, such as
switchgrass and even raw trash.
(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles and Tim
Gardner in New York; Edited by Nichola Groom and Christian
Wiessner)
((steve.gorman@reuters.com; +1 213-955-6761))
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Keywords: ENVIRONMENT/FUELS CALIFORNIA

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