The Inspector General’s office says it will assess whether the EPA properly updated its life-cycle analysis of the Renewable Fuels Standard, which guarantees biofuels a share of the gasoline market. An ethanol trade group, the Renewable Fuels Association, said it was confident, based on work by the Energy Department and other analysts, that the review would show “grain ethanol produced today reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent compared to fossil fuels — even when hypothetical land use emissions are taken into account.”
A 20-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is required under a 2007 law for corn-based ethanol to qualify for inclusion in RFS, said Agri-Pulse. The life-cycle analysis would look at direct impacts from production of corn and processing into ethanol as well as indirect impacts, such as shifts in cropland. Economist Scott Irwin of U-Illinois told Agri-Pulse that models for estimating indirect changes in land use over decades “are ridiculously bad.”