Boost for biomass

It turns out that fallen limbs are good for something besides tripping careless hikers.

Powering your car, for instance.

In the publicly owned forests in Northeastern Oregon the ground is littered with tens of thousands of tons of limbs, twigs and other woody debris that could be made into ethanol.

Except some members of Congress, in a move that qualifies as egregiously illogical even by that body’s standards, seems to prefer we left the stuff lying around to waylay walkers.

Or, worse still, to fuel a summer wildfire rather than your sedan.

In December 2007 Congress passed the Energy Security & Independence Act.

Its goal is worthwhile: To ensure that America has a supply of energy that we can replenish ourselves instead of relying on foreign countries, some of which don’t like us much (hence “independence”).

To that end, the Act calls for the United States to produce 36 billion gallons of “renewable” fuels such as ethanol. Of that, 21 billion gallons are to come from so-called “advanced” sources, including biomass, with the other 15 billion gallons made from corn, the traditional raw material for ethanol.

One huge potential source of ethanol is biomass from federal forests — logging slash and other waste wood that usually is piled and burned.

Some members of Congress, including Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Reps. Greg Walden and Peter DeFazio, have promoted using biomass from federal forests to make ethanol. The process, they say, not only reduces the country’s dependence on foreign oil, but it would reduce the risk of fires in publicly owned forests.

A classic “win-win” situation, if you’ll pardon the cliche.

But just before Congress voted on the Energy Act at the end of 2007, a group of representatives changed the legislation. As a result, ethanol made from biomass gathered on federal land does not count toward the 36-billion-gallon goal.

That change blocked one potentially lucrative market for biomass, Wyden said.

“Right now, instead of being part of the solution to our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, biomass from federal lands is allowed to build up in the woods, or worse become fuel for catastrophic fires,” Wyden testified last week during a Senate subcommittee hearing.

Wyden is sponsoring a bill that would add biomass-sourced ethanol to the list of fuels that count toward the 36-billion-gallon standard.

Congress should pass that bill.

We hope President Obama, for whom renewable energy is almost a mantra, will sign it into law.

America needs renewable fuels. And we would prefer those fuels were made from waste wood rather than, say, corn.

Ponderosa pine is pretty hard to digest, is the thing.

But corn is quite tasty.