Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, Oregonians have a strong interest in using biomass as a source of renewable fuels. This desire, coupled with how well we grow biomass in Oregon, creates the opportunity to use carefully selected wood waste as a source for cleaner transportation fuel. If we do it right, this effort will lead to healthier forests, more carbon sequestration, cleaner transportation fuels as compared to traditional gasolines, and protected old growth forests.

Current law excludes the use of federal biomass in the making of renewable fuels as defined by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The bill being introduced today eliminates that exclusion.

In addition to being an energy matter, this is an important forest management issue. Over many decades there has been an unnatural buildup of woody material on the forest floor. It becomes fuel for catastrophic wildfires. For months, each summer, Oregonians in every corner of the state, from Astoria to Adel and from Medford to Madras, suffer from smokey skies, hazardous air quality, and the almost constant threat that a wildfire may burn down their homes. In the eastern portion of the state, invasive species like juniper trees pose challenges, on both private and public lands--lowering water tables, posing fire risks, and encroaching on sage grouse habitat. It is time we stopped putting our heads in the sand, hoping the environmental ship will right itself.

Instead, this excess woody biomass should be contributing to U.S. energy independence by being converted to transportation or electricity fuels. This bill makes that economically feasible. It would make it more cost efficient for private landowners to remove low-value brush, like juniper. The bill also helps pay for programs to reduce dead and dying trees that fuel catastrophic wildfires and helps thin out unhealthy second-growth forests. The bill ensures that all residuals from the milling process and certain biomass from national forests and BLM forests qualify for the RFS standards.

Importantly, under this new definition biomass materials harvested from federal lands must be done so in accordance with all federal laws, regulations, and land-use plans and designations. In addition, the bill pays specific attention to biomass removal from insect and disease ridden forests and wildfire prone areas. And, to ensure environmental problems are being solved, not created, the bill restricts the types of biomass materials that can be harvested from federal lands so that old growth trees and stands will continue to be protected.

At the end of the day, the small diameter trees, the limbs, the debris, even sawdust at the mill presents real opportunities to generate green energy, generate green jobs, lower wildfire risks in rural areas across the country, and better position the United States to meet the RFS.

There is a lot of bipartisan support for the biomass definition in this bill. It balances sound energy policy with sound environmental policy.

I want to thank my colleagues Senators Risch, King, Crapo, and Merkley for joining me on this important bill.

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