A White House memo warning of the negative economic consequences of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding” exposes the extreme dangers associated with EPA’s aggressive regulatory agenda, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said.

The endangerment finding would pave the way for the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. There would be severe impacts on small, rural communities.

“This memo underscores the costly impact the Obama administration’s goals for greenhouse gas regulation would have and also highlights the need for my bipartisan legislation preventing the imposition of a “cow tax” which would tax agricultural producers for naturally occurring livestock emissions, the cost of which will be passed along to consumers,” Thune said.

He said EPA’s decision to target greenhouse gases without congressional instruction is a direct threat to families and businesses in South Dakota, as well as the agricultural sector.

The potential “cow tax” and the EPA’s indirect land use proposal to count carbon outputs in other countries against American ethanol’s carbon score are direct threats to the rural economy, he said.

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., is reiterating her earlier position by saying EPA should base its rules on fact, not fiction.

While an aggressive new Renewable Fuels Standard requiring the use of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022 is being hailed by ethanol supporters, the EPA has released a controversial proposed rule to implement the standard, something that threatens the progress in advancing clean-burning, homegrown biofuels, she said.

“The rule does clearly show what many of us have said for quite some time: when direct emissions are compared to gasoline, ethanol burns far more cleanly,” she said. “That’s just common sense.

“We didn’t need EPA to tell us that. On the other hand, I have very serious concerns about EPA’s inclusions of findings on so-called ‘indirect’ land use changes in the U.S. and in other countries that some are attributing to biofuels production,” Herseth Sandlin said.

“I’m extremely disappointed that in issuing this proposed rule, EPA may be accepting questionable models of land use that are not well ground in sound science, and that haven’t been fully tested in the scientific world,” she said.

Herseth Sandlin commented on the indirect land use proposal in a conference call last week and in an op-ed piece she released on Wednesday.

She has joined with House Agriculture Committee colleagues in calling for the public comment period on indirect land use changes be tripled, from 60 to 180 days.

A final rule must recognize and take advantage of the innovations of U.S. agricultural producers and biofuels producers who are pushing yields per acre up and enhancing the ethanol production process, she said.

Earlier this year, Thune and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced bipartisan legislation prohibiting the EPA from taxing naturally occurring livestock emissions. Thune has also introduced a bill prohibiting the EPA from using carbon measures as a result of international indirect land use against ethanol’s carbon score.

He also said representatives from the South Dakota Corn Growers Association, the South Dakota Soybean Association, the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council, POET and the American Coalition for Ethanol oppose the EPA’s decision to include carbon outputs resulting from indirect land use in other countries when calculating ethanol’s lifecycle carbon emissions.



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