M E M O R A N D U M
TO: Reporters and Editors
RE: CARB ruling
DA: Friday, April 24, 2009
Senator Chuck Grassley today made the following statement after the California Air Resources Board (CARB) voted to enact a low carbon fuel standard that unfairly penalizes homegrown biofuels like ethanol.
"Unfortunately, the California Air Resources Board, in their effort to enact a low carbon fuel standard, has used faulty indirect land use assumptions to penalize clean, homegrown biofuels. In their decision, they have determined that U.S. biofuels result in land use changes that result in significant carbon emissions. The fact is, scientists have demonstrated ethanol's ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 to 60 percent compared to gasoline.
"I've described a similar effort by the EPA to unfairly penalize ethanol and biodiesel as defying common sense. It looks like CARB is from the same planet as the EPA, and it sure isn't earth. It's too bad that CARB has chosen to rely on incomplete science and inaccurate assumptions about the production methods and the resulting greenhouse gas benefits of biofuels.
"When CARB gets done with its California dreaming, I hope they realize that agricultural practices and land use decisions in other countries are not driven by U.S. biofuels policy, and should not be used to undermine our domestic biofuels industry. These types of ridiculous conclusions harm our domestic biofuels industry, hinder our energy and national security efforts, and do real harm to our environment."