California's New Ethanol Rules

California air regulators have enacted a rule requiring low-carbon fuels as part of the state's wider effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The California Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to approve the standards, which are expected to create a new market for alternative fuels. The rules call for reducing the carbon content of fuels sold in the state by 10 percent by 2020.

Ethanol industry executives have taken exception, saying state regulators overstated the environmental effects of corn-based ethanol. They have criticized the board's intention to tie global deforestation and other land conversions to bio-fuel production in the United States. Renewable Fuels Association President Bob Dinneen says it’s a good thing that California will be the first in the U.S. to impose a carbon-based fuel requirement. But he says the ethanol industry is frustrated that… “the Board still went ahead and approved a program that had as its basis some really ridiculous indirect land use numbers. The board turned their back on reams of data that the ethanol industry and other scientists had submitted that were calling into question the assumptions that they were making about corn yields and that they were making about distillers feed that impact significantly the land use implications of bio-fuels.”