Local politicians seek Energy Bill change

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By Warren Wells

Story Published: Feb 13, 2008 at 5:56 PM PST


The Energy Bill that came through Congress in December of last year had public lands stripped out of the cellulosic ethanol portion of the bill by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others.

That particular exclusion basically wrote Douglas County out of the equation and set Susan Morgan, Peter DeFazio, Joe Laurance and other local politicians scrambling to get federal timberlands back into the bill as a source for cellulosic ethanol.

"(The bill says) you can't have any material off federal forest lands. Well, that's the biggest repository of bio-mass that we know of."

House Speaker Pelosi changed the wording in the energy bill just enough to exclude harvesting wood from any public woodlands, a fact that Laurance picked up on.

"She was responding to their concern that we would cut all the nation's forests and reduce them to ethanol. Clearly there are any number of protections in place that would prevent that from happening, and she didn't see the bigger picture, in that, while we are intent on producing ethanol, the big reason behind this effort is to prevent that forest from burning."

Commissioner Laurance, a former logger himself, says Douglas County could become a major producer of cellulosic ethanol once the energy bill is amended to allow public timber to be used for fuel stock.

Oregon Senator Gordon Smith announced the Boardman, Oregon ethanol plant will begin producing cellulosic ethanol as soon as next year, with or without public timber.

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