February 19, 2009

US farmers are worried the Environmental Protection Agency may decide that soy-based biodiesel does not meet the requirements it needs to qualify for a production mandate devised by Congress, American Soybean Association Chairman John Hoffman said Wednesday (February 18).

Congress, in its renewable fuel standard, mandated that biodiesel production reach 1 billion gallons per year by 2012, Hoffman said, but that could be scrapped by the EPA if it decides that the soybean fuel is not as good for the environment as was previously thought.

The problem is not soy farming and biodiesel production in the US, but rather the disruptive effect both are having to the environment overseas, Hoffman said. The EPA, he said, is concerned that farmers are destroying rainforest to plant soy to make biodiesel.

"To qualify for the renewable fuel standard, a renewable fuel has to be 50 percent better in greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum-based fuels," Hoffman said. "Under the current standards, soy-based biodiesel is quantified as about a 78 percent improvement over petroleum-based (fuel). If you include international, indirect land use - land coming out of production...in the Amazon - that figure falls below the 50 percent standard."

Hoffman and Rob Joslin, ASA first vice president, sat down Wednesday to talk to reporters after they met with US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The ASA officials said Vilsack shared their concerns and the secretary "has been in direct consultations with the EPA administrator" about this issue.