Energy

The Energy Bill signed into law last month provides yet another example of the twisted irony that is far too easy to find in the stuff that comes out of Congress. This time Big Brother has gotten into your bedroom while protecting the bugs that are destroying the forests.

Defenders of personal freedom that they are, Congress overwhelmingly passed a new law that will require phasing out Thomas Edison's incandescent light bulb. Who knew that was such a big national issue? The 100 watt bulb is targeted for elimination in 2012. Congress granted the 40 watt bulb a reprieve until 2014. 

The Energy Bill represents Congress's latest attempt against the evils of global warming, of course, which has become the new national religion in a nation that isn't supposed to have a national religion.

Big Brother has determined that individuals cannot make their own determinations regarding such important matters as light bulb efficiency, so that burden will soon be lifted from the shoulders of citizens. Once praised as the glowing product of Edison's genius, Congress now understands that life as we know it is actually threatened by that energy sucking lamp next to your pillow. And, they mean to do something about it. Within a few short years all clandestine incandescent destroyers of the universe will disappear by law from the shelves of Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and your local grocery store to be replace by the more sensible – although 500% more expensive – compact fluorescent bulbs (cfl).

Considerable concern exists regarding the mercury contained inside the CFL bulbs and the potential hazards to consumers from breakage. The EPA advises to never use bare hand or even a vacuum to clean up a broken CFL. The potential for millions of CFL bulbs to wind up in land fills also causes concern. "Disposal of any mercury-contaminated material in landfills is absolutely alarming to me," says Steve Lindberg, emeritus fellow of the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Congress will no doubt take full responsibility to spend more of our tax dollars to clean up toxic waste sights created by compliance with their imposed federal mandate.

The idea to ban the incandescent light didn't start on Capitol Hill. Fidel Castro is credited with being the first in Cuba, followed quickly by his friend Hugo Chavez from Venezuela, and then those enlightened Europeans. The folks in Washington just could let leadership like that get too far in front of the USA.

It is important for the folks back home to know the important work that is done in Washington to save us from ourselves. The next time someone suggests that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid aren't getting anything done in Washington, remember the death of the 60 watt bulb and be thankful.

But, Congress Protected the Pine Beetle

With much fanfare, Congress mandated a 500% increase for the bio-fuels minimum standard adopted just two years ago that refineries will have to include in gas and diesel. Congress is not at all concerned with price competitiveness or market efficiencies. This is a plain and simple federal sledge hammer style mandate.

While corn growers might be celebrating, not all bio-fuels demanded by the new Energy Bill are to come from corn-based ethanol. Congress actually capped the amount of subsidies for corn ethanol at 15 billion gallons by 2016. An almost equal amount is to come from bio-fuels produced from cellulosic plant materials like switchgrass and wood chips.

Tragically – and with twisted irony only Congress can accomplish - in the process they also gutted the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 that was hope for the lodge pole pine forests in our Rocky Mountains ravaged by the mountain pine beetle.

Recent reports indicate the beetle damage has spread to the east slope and foresters now caution that the majority of old growth may ultimately be lost. Within the last year alone beetle damage increased by 500,000 acres of forest infested with the deadly bug bringing total damage land to 1.5 million acres since the outbreak began in 1996.

"Catastrophic" and an "unprecedented event" was how US Forest Service regional forester Rick Cabels described the rapidly expanding damage, adding that with all the dead trees, the forests would be especially "susceptible to fires for the next 15 or 20 years." Anyone who has seen the damage knows Colorado is literally sitting on mountains of matches.

Congress passed the Healthy Forest Initiative in 2003 to give our foresters a fighting chance to manage the forests and mitigate the damage. Thinning and removing dead and dying trees made obvious sense, and newly developed biomass technology provided a likely use and economic incentive to reduce the fire hazard.

Ethanol from biomass of all types has great potential, and it would seem that if Congress was to mandate that cellulosic ethanol contribute about equally to corn based ethanol for their new mandated requirement that the dead fire hazard material in our forests be utilized.

Amazingly, Congress did exactly the opposite. The Energy Bill of 2007 actually prohibits utilizing bio-fuel made from the dead trees to meet the renewable energy mandates of the legislation. No, I am not making this up.

TITLE II--ENERGY SECURITY THROUGH INCREASED PRODUCTION OF BIOFUELS

Subtitle A--Renewable Fuel Standard

SEC. 201. DEFINITIONS.

Section 211(o)(1) of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7545(o)) is amended to read as follows:

(1) DEFINITIONS- In this section:

(I) RENEWABLE BIOMASS- The term `renewable biomass' means each of the following:

     (i) Planted crops and crop residue harvested from agricultural land cleared or cultivated at any time prior to the enactment of this sentence that is either actively managed or fallow, and nonforested.

     (ii) Planted trees and tree residue from actively managed tree plantations on non-federal land cleared at any time prior to enactment of this sentence, including land belonging to an Indian tribe or an Indian individual, that is held in trust by the United States or subject to a restriction against alienation imposed by the United States.

     (iii) Animal waste material and animal byproducts.

     (iv) Slash and pre-commercial thinnings that are from non-federal forestlands, including forestlands belonging to an Indian tribe or an Indian individual, that are held in trust by the United States or subject to a restriction against alienation imposed by the United States, but not forests or forestlands that are ecological communities with a global or State ranking of critically imperiled, imperiled, or rare pursuant to a State Natural Heritage Program, old growth forest, or late successional forest.

     (v) Biomass obtained from the immediate vicinity of buildings and other areas regularly occupied by people, or of public infrastructure, at risk from wildfire.

     (vi) Algae.

     (vii) Separated yard waste or food waste, including recycled cooking and trap grease.

More folks than just Coloradans were expecting renewable energy incentives to extend to forest products, not prohibitions. South Dakota’s entire congressional delegation reportedly worked hard so “wood waste from national forests would qualify for the definition of renewable biomass in the energy bill.” Democrat Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Republican Sen. John Thune were both upset, but in Colorado our delegation has been strangely silent. Aaron Everett of the Black Hills Forest Resource Association in South Dakota was furious. "Essentially, for the purposes of energy incentives for the federal government, forest biomass on national forest lands might as well not exist," he said while also indentifying the source of the problem. "I think it fell victim to groups whose aim is to limit, in any way possible, forest management on public lands," he said.

So, Congress passed a law to outlaw the light bulbs that helped moms fix dinner and kids do their homework for generations, and then protected the bugs killing our forests while they wait to burn. Something that nuts just had to come out of Washington.