Marquee environmental legislation that would require the auto industry to curb tailpipe emissions in Minnesota beyond federal rules has crashed into an unsuspected roadblock in the Legislature: the state’s ethanol producers.
The “California Clean Cars” legislation is in danger of being ditched by the clean-fuels folks, as the ethanol industry sees itself, in alliance with the auto lobby.
“We can’t stop this bill by ourselves,” said Eric Hyland of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. That’s why his group and the Minnesota Auto Dealers’ Association have courted ethanol producers and agriculture powerhouses like the Minnesota Corn Growers and the Farm Bureau to join the fight being waged in Minnesota and eight other states over whether the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C., or the California Air Resources Board (ARB) in Sacramento should be the guiding authority on regulating auto emissions.
Hyland and the state’s auto dealers’ group are among those closely watching companion bills by DFLers Sen. John Marty of Roseville and Rep. Melissa Hortman of Blaine wend through a maze of legislative committees. Also shadowing the bills’ progress is the Clean Energy Minnesota, a coalition of environmental advocates led by James Erkel of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.
(To view both bills go here. For the House version type H.F. 0863 in the House “bills” box, and for the Senate version type S.F. 0481 in the Senate “bills” box.)
Concern about biofuels
In the Senate, Marty’s bill was dealt a potentially crippling blow this morning when Sen. James Metzen, DFL-St. Paul, announced that his Business, Industry and Jobs Committee is unlikely to hear the bill, a move that could potentially kill the legislation. In the House, Hortman’s bill is in the Finance Environment Committee, where it’s expected that committee Chair Rep. Jean Wagenius, DFL-Minneapolis, will fold it into an omnibus environment bill.
Both bills suffered a major blow when the ethanol industry joined the fray with a blizzard of questions about what the legislation would mean for the biofuels industry in Minnesota. The National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition of Missouri together with Farm Bureau and Minnesota Corn Growers President Roger Moore of Blue Earth, Minn., oppose the legislation, saying it could curtail the use and production of ethanol-blended fuels.
Moore has told lawmakers that the legislation would harm efforts to expand ethanol markets and that it would “make it difficult to certify E-85 vehicles,” the so-called flex fuel cars and trucks that can run on a variety of ethanol-gasoline blended fuel.
Erkel said the concern is baseless, pointing to GMC’s 2008 Sierra 1500 pickup that runs on a rich blend of E-85 (85-percent ethanol and 15-percent gasoline) as well as similar vehicles that would meet the more stringent California standards. The ARB’s Dimitri Stanich said California air regulators have certified 300,000 flex fuel vehicles and suggested there will be more as soon as the state increases the number of pumps offering E-85 fuel, which California is now doing.