The POLICY GOALS of the BioEnergy Producers Association are as follows:

  • To achieve a statutory and regulatory environment in the state of California that allows for the efficient permitting of environmentally preferable industries that produce renewable sources of green power, chemicals and advanced biofuels from agriculture, forestry and urban biomass, and plastic wastes.
  • To enable the regulation of conversion technologies on the basis of standards of performance, subject to the State’s stringent standards for air and water quality, rather than attempting to define, categorize and regulate these technologies by type. Current regulatory practice defines the types of cellulosic waste that can be processed by a conversion technology facility, and specifically excludes organic wastes.  If conversion technologies were allowed to process MSW as a feedstock for the local production of liquid and electric energy, this would count as disposal.
  • To pursue consistent regulatory policy that enables conversion technologies that produce power or biofuels from solid waste to qualify for both landfill diversion credit and the RPS.
  • To assure that the implementation of AB 341’s goal of 75% recycling addresses the concept of “highest and best use” for recyclables, and that this definition includes the production of advanced biofuels and electric power. The organic wastes that are currently being placed in California’s landfills each year hold the potential as feedstocks for the production of 1.6 billion gallons of biofuels per year.
  • To provide “green collar” jobs at home in California, now that China has significantly reduced the amount of waste that it is importing.
  • To expedite the introduction of these technologies, making it possible for California to produce low-cost electric and liquid energy from organic wastes, while complying with all requirements under the EIR and CEQA processes.
  • Through the implementation of conversion technologies, contribute to achieving the carbon reduction goals mandated in AB 32.
  • To enable the producers of renewable natural gas from organic wastes to inject this product into California’s natural gas pipelines to assist in meeting the state’s mandate for 50% renewable power production by 2030.
  • To provide new incentives for the reduction of landfills and the elimination of such practices as the agricultural land spreading of sewage sludge.
  • To expedite the introduction of technologies that address the crisis of agricultural waste disposal facing growers in California’s Central Valley, providing an alternative to open field burning, which has been mandated by CARB for complete elimination by 2025.
  • To reduce the importing of ethanol (or corn for the production of ethanol) from the Midwest and to produce advanced biofuels, including drop-in fuels, in the State profitably and competitively with gasoline.
  • To enable municipalities and waste management organizations to obtain diversion credit when converting landfill-bound MSW to biofuels or other products, and to extend dramatically–by up to five times–the effective life of their landfills.