Vinnie Geiser

Concerned about global temperatures, Washington is phasing out electricity generated from coal – once the mainstay of, among many other applications, US Navy ship propulsion. Renewables such as wind, solar and, for Virginia especially, forest biomass (wood and byproducts derived from sustainable forest management and from paper and wood products manufacturing facilities) are favored alternatives. But now a policy impasse in Washington risks making forest-sourced biomass an energy outcast, too. Only Congress can break the bureaucratic gridlock.

At issue is a rulemaking in 2010 that suddenly and without public notice or proper scientific review reversed federal policy and regulated forest biomass the same as fossil fuels. Because of this radical departure and demands to modify the rule, the government put the rule on hold to study the science. Today—six years later and without a clear path forward—uncertainty remains for energy producers, forest owners and manufacturers that rely on forest biomass for energy. Building new facilities, retrofitting existing ones, and installing necessary emission control technologies dedicated to the fuel requires significant planning and investment. Washington’s policy paralysis has thrown an economic and environmental disincentive in the way of that essential investment.

The problem, the regulators say, is measuring the carbon impacts from forest biomass. However, the carbon benefits of woody biomass are well established, as 100 leading forestry scientists from around the U.S. have repeatedly stated in letters to the government. Those scientists cite the most comprehensive survey of peer-reviewed literature in their field concluding that, “[D]emand for wood helps keep land in forest and incentivizes investments in new and more productive forests, all of which have significant carbon benefits.”

In the U.S, the strong markets for wood products including biomass are why the volume of trees in our forests has increase 50% since the 1950s. In Virginia, despite massive post-World War II suburbanization, our state has nearly a million more acres in forestland than it did in 1940 and forest-dependent industries like logging, wood products, and pulp & paper employ over 27,000 workers. Today, our total U.S. forests offset 13 percent of total CO2 emissions annually. Those offsets are precisely why the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated, “In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fiber or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained [carbon] mitigation benefit.”

Washington’s indecision also may put U.S. policy at odds with the Paris Agreement on climate change, adopted last December. That global agreement underlines the importance of “positive incentives for … sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stock.” It urges signers to “take action to implement and support” expansion of the global volume of trees.

Congress is working on solutions, but can it act before it adjourns? A Senate-passed energy bill provides a policy establishing the carbon benefits of forest biomass, and the Senate Interior Appropriations bill includes specific guidance on how to get that done. One way or the other, it is essential for Congress to put the US back in line with the global norm and affirm the carbon benefits of forest biomass.

Tens of thousands of Virginia jobs with manufacturing-level wages and the quality of our global environment are at stake. The international community continues to recognize that forest biomass energy is essential to a scientifically sustainable climate policy. It is time the United States did the same — again.