Noem Recycles Herseth Sandlin Legislation on Forest Biomass

While KELO gives Kristi Noem more puffball coverage, South Dakota's lone Congresswoman has managed to find one specific policy she can support: turning woodchips into ethanol:

Noem, R-S.D., introduced legislation with U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., to expand the "renewable biomass" definitions of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in federal law to include materials from private and national forest land. The materials would include forest waste and slash from forest-thinning and pine-beetle sanitation work.

"Expanding this definition is a strong step toward better managing our forests in the Black Hills while enhancing our ability to produce more American-made energy," Noem said. "There's no sensible reason why cellulosic ethanol derived from forest land should be excluded from the RFS Standard. This bill fixes that problem and will incentivize more cellulosic ethanol production to meet our nation's renewable energy goals" [staff, "Noem Seeks to Make Slash Piles Eligible for Renewable Biomass Standards," Rapid City Journal, 2011.05.16].

Of course, if this is a good idea, it couldn't have come from Noem's office. From 2009:

The U.S. Forest Service, timber and alternative energy groups have met with South Dakota's congressional delegation to discuss the exclusion of biomass from the federal Energy Bill. Thune and U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., have since introduced separate bills to change the definition of renewable biomass, as it was written in earlier versions of the Energy Bill. The legislation also promotes the development and use of cellulosic ethanol derived from woody biomass on federal lands. The Black Hills National Forest, a dense ponderosa pine forest covers an area 125 miles long and 65 miles wide in western South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming.

"[The current biomass] provision not only discourages the use of such biomass, but in doing so could result in a decrease in responsible forest management by denying land managers an important outlet for the excessive biomass loads that often accumulate on public lands," Herseth Sandlin says. "Amending the definition of renewable biomass in the Energy Bill will greatly improve our ability to manufacture renewable energy from our forestlands, both public and private, all over the country. This would bring tremendous benefits, not only to our environment, to forest health, and to our national security, but it will also provide an economically viable outlet for forest byproducts that could revitalize the local economies of hundreds of small forest communities across the country, including those in the Black Hills."

Herseth Sandlin's bill significantly broadens the definition of cellulosic ethanol within the RFS to include more biomass gathered from federal land and would allow RFS credit for broad categories of biomass from nonfederal and tribal lands including agricultural commodities, plants and trees, algae, crop residue, waste material (including wood waste and wood residues), animal waste and byproducts (including fats, oils, greases, and manure), construction waste, and food and yard waste [Hope Deutscher, "National Forest Slash Piles Eyed for Fuel," Biomass Magazine, 2009.01.01].

Recycling renewable fuel ideas from Herseth Sandlin: once again, Noem shows how green she is.

But at least Kristi can make a roast. I wonder whose recipe she uses.