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Brazilian sugarcane producers applaud the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for once again declaring that sugarcane ethanol is one of the most environmentally friendly biofuels supplying today’s market.

The annual EU-Brazil summit will take place next week here in the European Union capital, Brussels. There will be plenty of bonhomie as these summits go. We can reasonably expect trade to be one of the most important items of the political agenda, alongside other global challenges such as economic growth and climate change. That includes the EU-Mercosur trade agreement negotiations, since the EU is Brazil’s biggest trading partner and Brazil is the most important market for the EU in the Latin American region.

Brazil’s sugarcane ethanol producers submitted formal comments to the EPA that expressed the industry’s serious concerns about the agency's proposed standards for the 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Read them here.

Brazilian sugarcane ethanol producers well-founded comments on the RFS urge EPA to set volume targets that are in line with Congress’ and the Administration’s twin goals of replacing fossil fuels with advanced biofuels and other renewable fuels, and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation fuels.

Centering the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) debate on volume targets for all biofuels has let two key benefits of advanced biofuels slip out of focus: the potential for non-corn ethanol to drastically cut lifecycle emissions compared to gasoline, and the ability of biofuel feedstocks to be sustainably grown without harming the environment.

Apparently, the current European Commission’s long term strategy is now formally not to have one.

On Wednesday, this Commission formally mapped out, in the first step in a long legislative process ahead, its much awaited perspective on what it thinks the European Union’s longer term climate abatement goals should be to 2030. This perspective is dubbed the ‘2030 Framework on Climate and Energy’.

With the European Commission days away from releasing its policy proposal on so-called 2030 climate and energy targets, it’s worth taking stock of how this position will negatively impact the decarbonization of the transport sector and how once again this Commission is failing to recognize the role of sustainable biofuels, no matter their potential to reduce GHG emissions.

The Environmental Protection Agency is hosting a public hearing on December 5 to hear from industry leaders on the agency’s proposed renewable fuel standards for 2014. I will be testifying on behalf of Brazilian sugarcane producers, and here’s an advance look at what I will say:

In 2013, advanced biofuels continued to flourish, and Brazilian sugarcane producers stayed active in sharing vital facts about clean, advanced renewable fuels like sugarcane ethanol. Heading into the New Year, it’s clear the decisions confronting lawmakers and EPA regulators on the RFS will have a great impact on our world’s journey towards decreasing greenhouse gases and improving energy security. Here’s our wish list naming what we would like to see under the tree or delivered in 2014.

EU Member States on Thursday confirmed what many European biofuel watchers had assumed for many weeks: the issue of biofuels and their potential indirect effects (so-called Indirect Land Use Change) won’t be addressed until the next European Parliament and the next European Commission takeover in late 2014.

The U.S. Senate is holding an oversight hearing today examining the Renewable Fuel Standard. The head of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) is scheduled to testify, and according to prepared remarks, will make an exaggerated claim that deserves further scrutiny.

Ahead of the adoption of the Political Agreement on the ILUC dossier in the Energy Council on 12 December 2013, a group of NGOs put out a briefing on the biofuels policy review and on the three main issues in the debate: the cap for land-based biofuels, the weakening of the 20% RED target and the inclusion of ILUC factors for accounting purposes.
A cap such as the one proposed by the Commission and defended by the NGOs is just a clumsy attempt to find a quick remedy to issues that remained unsolved in 2009, bringing no evident benefit in the long term. In fact, such a black and white approach would not take into account the good performances of well-performing conventional biofuels such as sugarcane ethanol.

A couple of new reports released this month in Brussels carry a similar message: Sustainable biofuels, like sugarcane-based ethanol from Brazil, will need to play a significant role if the decarbonization of European transport is going to happen longer term.
There’s also another important message in the two studies, one by E4Tech and the other by CE Delft/TNO: the EU still has an opportunity -- especially with a new Commission and new European Parliament taking over in 2014 -- to cultivate the right policy environment in order to move industry toward producing more advanced biofuels and enabling higher blending rates of sustainably produced biofuels for gasoline and diesel.

In response to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiling a proposal that could cut next year’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) target for advanced biofuels by 20 percent, Leticia Phillips, the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association’s (known by the acronym “UNICA”) North American Representative issued the following statement.

As an indication of how the European Union biofuels dossier remains stuck in a holding pattern, the European Parliament’s Energy Committee has canceled a planned vote on whether to give the EU’s Parliament Rapporteur a mandate to hold negotiations with EU Member States and the European Commission to come up with a grand compromise on the dossier.

These inter-institution discussions are an important indication in the EU policymaking phase that signals that a conclusive policy text is likely to be around the corner. But this was not the case for the EU biofuels policy.