Bob Dinneen, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, recently submitted a <a href="http://link.coremotivesmarketing.com/c/306/6ec82d50ab3564ee191380dc35f12ae2a9bfb8d32d2093756f99aa61acac5f24">letter</a> to the California Air Resources Board outlining &ldquo;serious concerns about the openness, transparency, and scientific integrity of staff&rsquo;s new indirect land use change (ILUC) analysis for the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).&rdquo; The letter follows a Sept. 29 workshop in which CARB staff revealed that it is planning to disregard the latest published research on ILUC, maintain disproven and faulty assumptions, and ignore stakeholder comments received in the spring.
RFA, along with approximately 40 other stakeholders, submitted detailed technical <a href="http://link.coremotivesmarketing.com/c/306/6ec82d50ab3564ee191380dc35f12ae2a9bfb8d32d2093754852c773f7918f0d">comments</a> in April aimed at improving CARB&rsquo;s analysis, but &ldquo;it was abundantly clear that the information submitted by stakeholders in the spring had been wholly disregarded&rdquo; by the time CARB held its September public workshop. CARB staff gave no reason as to why it ignored the comments &ldquo;even when stakeholders explicitly asked for staff&rsquo;s rationale for ignoring new information.&rdquo; CARB staff also remained vague about future plans to examine the new information. Because CARB staff failed to explain why it disregarded the technical comments submitted by RFA in April, the extensive comments were re-submitted.
Moreover, Dinneen&rsquo;s letter highlighted CARB staff&rsquo;s misguided belief that it is &ldquo;not productive&rdquo; to examine real-world data concerning agricultural land use. Dinneen remarked that, &ldquo;Any objective scientist would find it prudent to examine the real-world data to determine whether predictive model results agreed with actual observed outcomes&hellip; Certainly, it is difficult to disentangle the real-world impact of biofuels expansion from the effects of other factors on actual global land use&mdash;but that does not mean CARB staff shouldn&rsquo;t at least attempt to ground-truth its predictive results against real-world data.&rdquo;
As an example of the disconnect between CARB&rsquo;s ILUC modeling results and the real world, Dinneen noted that CARB&rsquo;s model predicted that roughly 100,000 hectares of forest would be converted to cropland for biofuels production between 2001 and 2015. But real-world data show no U.S. forest loss has occurred; instead, U.S. forestland has grown 7 million hectares since 2001.
Dinneen concluded by calling on CARB to ensure its staff is transparent in its decision making and responsive to legitimate stakeholder concerns, stating, &ldquo;We urge you to ensure that the CARB staff responsible for the ILUC analysis are held accountable for their decisions and abide by the agency&rsquo;s long-standing norms for science-based rulemaking.&rdquo;
The full letter can be found <a href="http://link.coremotivesmarketing.com/c/306/6ec82d50ab3564ee191380dc35f12ae2a9bfb8d32d2093756f99aa61acac5f24">here</a>.
&nbsp;

2014/10/CARBILUC_14135013649931_largethumb.jpg

2014/10/CARBILUC_14135013649931_thumb.jpg

2014/10/CARBILUC_14135013649931.jpg

Bob Dinneen, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, recently submitted a letter to the California Air Resources Board outlining serious concerns regarding the staff's new indirect land use analysis. 

RFA hammers CARB on lack of ILUC transparency

Related Stories

Senate version of “big, beautiful bill” aims to extend, alter 45Z tax credit

TotalEnergies, a pioneer in SAF and committed to the decarbonization of air transport

California bill aims to expedite development of up to 3 SAF projects

XCF Global, Focus Impact BH3 announce closing of business combination

EPA releases proposed rule to set 2026, 2027 RFS RVOs, make significant changes to RFS program

Upcoming Events

North American SAF Conference & Expo

RFA hammers CARB on lack of ILUC transparency .css-7jxktu{position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;right:0px;height:3px;border-radius:3px;background-color:var(--chakra-colors-brandBlack);}