REVITALIZING THE FARM ECONOMY THROUGH RENEWABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT

From Environmental and Energy Study Institute
Monday, September 24, 2001

WASHINGTON, DC — Developing our nation’s on-farm renewable energy resources
has the potential to boost farmer income, create jobs in rural communities,
diversify our nation’s energy market, and protect our environment, according
to a new report from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI)
entitled “The 2002 Farm Bill: Revitalizing the Farm Economy Through Renewable
Energy Development.”
“With the reauthorization of the Farm Bill, Congress has the opportunity to
marry agriculture and energy production,” said Carol Werner, executive
director of EESI and co-author of the report. “Diversifying our nation’s
energy markets through the development of renewable power and fuels is a
matter of national security. By integrating renewable energy development
initiatives throughout the Farm Bill, America’s farmers can be provided the
support they need to develop their renewable energy resources, including
bioenergy, wind, solar, and geothermal.”

Tremendous untapped renewable resources exist throughout America’s farmland.
Biomass feedstocks including crop residues (e.g. corn stover, rice straw,
sugar cane bagasse, etc.), animal waste, and low-input energy crops can be
utilized to produce electricity, heat, fuels, chemicals, and a variety of
marketable products, creating new businesses and jobs. Biomass can be
co-fired with coal in existing facilities to produce electricity, or
combusted in dedicated biomass plants, lowering the emissions of pollutants
and greenhouse gases. Burdensome agricultural waste streams can be converted
into revenue streams.

Cellulosic ethanol can be produced from biomass and blended with gasoline or
used as a stand-alone fuel. According to the Argonne National Laboratory,
cellulosic ethanol can achieve over a 100 percent reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions when compared to gasoline. Biofuels, like ethanol, can be produced
along with biobased chemicals, polymers, and other products in
“biorefineries,” lowering production costs and producing several marketable
products.

Technological advances have brought down the cost of wind power
substantially. Farmers can reap great economic benefit from developing these
renewable resources. According to the American Wind Energy Association, wind
developers near Clear Lake and Storm Lake, Iowa pay rent to 115 landowners to
site their wind turbines. They pay about $2000 per turbine, which require
about ¼ acre of land each, for a total of $640,000 per year. The wind
projects also generate $2 million per year in tax revenue to the counties,
and have created 40 new jobs.

EESI recommends that renewable energy production be integrated throughout the
Farm Bill, including the Conservation, Research, and Rural Development
titles, as well as in related appropriations and tax legislation, and also
recommends several new initiatives that could be included in an Energy title
of the Farm Bill. EESI’s recommendations include:

CONSERVATION TITLE

Conservation Reserve Program: Allow wind turbines and biomass harvesting for
the production of biopower, biofuels, and biobased products on CRP land where
appropriate and consistent with other conservation goals.

Natural Resource Conservation Service: Provide technical assistance to
farmers and farmer-owned cooperatives to convert animal waste operations over
to anaerobic digesters. These systems capture methane, a potent greenhouse
gas, to produce heat and electricity.

CREDIT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT TITLES

Rural Business-Cooperative Service: Provide grants and loan
guarantees to establish cooperatives or expand existing cooperatives to
undertake wind, biopower, biofuel, and biobased product development projects.

Commodity Credit Corporation Bioenergy Program: Expand the Bioenergy Program
to compensate rural electric cooperatives, and other energy producers, for
purchasing agricultural biomass for the production of electricity.

Rural Utilities Service: Provide support to the Rural Electric Cooperatives
to establish net metering services, standardized interconnection, and
increased transmission efficiency, all of which are vital to developing
renewable energy.

RESEARCH AND EXTENSION TITLE

Biomass Research and Development Initiative: Fully fund the biomass
initiative as established in the Biomass Research and Development Act of 2000
and Executive Order 13134.

Agricultural Research Service: Increase funding within the Bioenergy and
Energy Alternatives program for the development of biofuels and energy crops.

Land-Grant Universities: Expand the mission of the Cooperative Extension
Service (CES) to provide education and technical assistance to farmers for
the development and marketing of renewable energy resources.

NEW INITIATIVES

Renewable Resource Assessment: Provide grants to state and local governments,
universities, or the CES to undertake renewable resource assessments on
agricultural lands. Farmers must first know the value and extent of their
resources to develop them.

Renewable Energy Standards: Establish a federal Renewable Portfolio standard
for power, and a Renewable Fuels Standard for transportation fuels, requiring
an increasing amount of energy used in the country to be derived from
renewable sources.

Federal Purchasing Programs: Require all federal agencies to increase their
use of renewable power, biofuels, and biobased products by establishing
purchasing programs.

Equipment Testing for Biofuels: Provide funding and assistance to equipment
manufacturers to test and certify their gasoline and diesel engines to use
biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel.

“Renewable energy development on America’s farms can revitalize rural
America, greatly improve national security by diversify our energy markets,
and help protect our environment – truly a ‘win-win-win’ scenario for farmers
and the nation,” said Werner.

The full report can be found at:
http://www.eesi.org/publications/Farm Bill Policy Paper.pdf

# # #

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) is a non-profit,
non-partisan organization with the mission of promoting the development of
public policy options that will sustain people, the environment and natural
resources. EESI was founded in 1984 by a bipartisan group of Members of
Congress.

For more information, contact:
Jeremy Ames
Environmental and Energy Study Institute
(202) 662-1892
james@eesi.org
Web site: http://www.eesi.org

Canada urges against hasty U.S. move on Arctic oil
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CANADA: September 25, 2001
 

OTTAWA - Canada urged the United States yesterday not to take a "hasty and
ill-considered" decision to start drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge,
something which Ottawa implacably opposes.
 

Canada has long objected to U.S. plans to drill in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), saying it would ruin the calving ground of the
Porcupine caribou herd upon which native Gwich'in Indians in both Alaska and
Canada depend.
But Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe is threatening to add language this week to
a multibillion-dollar defense-spending bill to allow drilling in ANWR as a
way to secure future U.S. oil supplies.

"It's particularly important at times when you have a crisis on your hands to
make sure you don't make hasty and ill-considered decisions," Canadian
Environment Minister David Anderson told Reuters.

"It's also very important at times like this, when energy security is a major
issue, that you consider all factors and not go ahead without the normal
analysis and the thought that would go into such a decision," he said in an
interview.

Canada, which says both countries should provide permanent protection for the
wildlife populations that straddle the border, has already slapped a
development ban on areas frequented by the Porcupine herd.

"We still believe (drilling) to be the wrong decision, we do not believe the
American security situation in any way justifies a change in that position,"
said Anderson.

Canadian Energy Minister Ralph Goodale last week said there plenty of other
energy sources in North America that could be developed before ANWR needed to
be touched. These included the vast tar sands of Alberta, which are believed
to be richer that the entire reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Supporters of opening the refuge say U.S. oil supplies from the Middle East
are at risk and the Alaska wilderness reserves are needed to make up any
possible shortfall.

"That is in our view a highly questionable approach. This should be based on
long-term strategic considerations - none of this oil, if it were drilled, is
going to come on flow for a number of years," Anderson told Reuters.

He said there was no evidence of a shortfall in supplies from the Middle East
and pointed to an almost 15 percent fall in the price of crude oil yesterday
as supply fears eased.

Anderson was speaking from the western city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, after
briefing provincial ministers on the international efforts to combat global
warming.

Delegates from around 180 countries failed in July to agree to changes to the
1997 Kyoto Protocol on cutting emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for
global warming. They are due to try again next month in Marrakesh, Morocco,
and Anderson said he expected that meeting to go ahead.

"Our hope is that the civilized world will be able to deal with the issue of
terrorism and still maintain its values in a number of areas," he said.

"We have a large number of global issues, including global warming, which
cannot simply be ignored...We have long-term interests as nations and they
continue even though we clearly have a major short-to medium-term problem -
I'm talking years now - on terrorism."

Story by David Ljunggren
 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 

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