Bio-mass can now come from federal forest land
By Dan BainLocal promoters of a bio-mass program to produce energy, say legislation passed by the U.S. House this week has closed a loophole, that would not have allowed bio-mass from federal lands to be used for that purpose. MultimediaDouglas County Commissioner Joe Laurance has been working on a bio-mass plan for the county using the material off the forest land. More than half of the county is federal land, and wording in the Energy Bill passed last winter, eliminated federal timberlands as a source of bio-mass. Laurance said a change was made in the Farm Bill that allows federal lands to produce bio-mass, and the president vetoed the bill. But the Senate overrode the veto on May 22nd. "That goes a long way toward overcoming that problem within the energy bill. So as far as we are concerned, we have federal legislation that defines bio-mass as something coming off the federal forest lands and that puts it back on track for Douglas County to re-coop that bio-mass." Douglas County is rich with bio-mass material, but much of it is on federal lands, and lifting that restriction makes it a much more workable project. "Not only did that eliminate any of that bio-mass coming from federal forest lands, but also about 90% of material coming off private forest lands as well. And what this does is, the first step in putting back things like green credits and tax advantages to those who bring bio-mass off both public and private lands," said Laurance. "And puts it back on track for planning in the federal forests." Laurance said they would still like to see the wording added to the Energy Bill which had eliminated the federal timberlands as a source of the renewable bio-mass. But he said at least now, they have federal legislation that would allow it to come off of federal lands. |
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February 9, 2012
- Roseburg, Oregon
