LETTER TO SENATOR MARIA CANTWELL

SENATOR CANTWELL: WE ASK YOU TO INTERVENE WITH THE EPA

Submitted to Shelton Blog by Duff Badgley Mason County Progressive

July 19, 2011

Senator Maria Cantwell
United States Senate
c/o Tommy Bauer
King County Outreach Representative
915 Second Avenue, Suite 3206
Seattle, WA, 98174

Re: 3 year biomass exemption from Clean Air Act regulations

Dear Sen. Cantwell:

We ask you to intervene with the EPA to avert epic greenhouse gas emissions from biomass. Yielding to biomass industry pressure and in defiance of the best published, peer-reviewed science, the EPA has deferred for three years imposing Clean Air Act (CAA) regulations on major stationary biogenic sources of greenhouse gases (GHGs).

During those three years (July 1, 2011-July 1, 2014) EPA is allowing the biomass industry to use biomass itself as Best Available Control Technology (BACT). This amounts to a three year exemption from CAA regulations that have now been imposed by the EPA on all other major stationary GHG sources.

This exemption will allow a stampede of highly polluting biomass projects to proceed unhindered. By 2014, we estimate up to 300 new, large-scale biomass combustion projects will have been built across the country without having to abide by CAA restrictions. In Washington State, we have been fighting seven industrial-scale biomass incineration projects that, if built, would emit more than 2.0M tons of CO2 annually.

The EPA has accepted as factual studies showing that, per unit of energy produced, biomass combustion is worse than coal combustion in key pollutants. Biomass combustion emits more CO2 (climate change), more nitrogen oxides (ozone and asthma), and more deadly particulate matter (heart attacks, cancer, strokes, premature death, chronic lung disease…) than coal combustion, per unit of energy produced.

If those 300 large-scale biomass plants are built and the nation continues to mistakenly classify biomass as “clean, renewable energy” under Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS)), using federal Department of Energy projections, we estimate biomass will be responsible for 700,000,000 annual tons of CO2 emissions by 2020.

Clearly, this must not happen.

Across Washington State, a large grassroots movement of citizens, non-governmental organizations, and health professionals has been ignited opposing biomass projects. We have thousands of supporters in King County, Thurston County, Mason County, Jefferson County, Clallam County, and Cowlitz County. In Mason County alone, more than 10% of all registered voters signed a petition opposing biomass projects. Together, we have defeated two large-scale biomass incinerator projects—one in Mason County and one proposed for the campus of Evergreen State College. Coalition members convinced Thurston County Commissioners to impose a one-year moratorium on all biomass incineration projects.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has been a national leader in debunking the myth that biomass is carbon neutral. Here is CBD Senior Attorney Kevin Bundy in his September 13, 2010 letter to the EPA:

“CO2 from fossil sources shares the same physical characteristics and same climate-forcing properties as CO2 from biogenic sources. There is no physical, chemical, or climate-forcing difference between fossil CO2 and biogenic CO2. Put simply, CO2 is CO2. Infrared radiation does not and cannot discriminate among the identical molecules of CO2 circulating in the atmosphere.”

We ask you to intervene with the EPA to roll back the exceedingly dangerous three-year CAA biomass exemption.

Thank you.

Duff Badgley
President
No Biomass Burn
Seattle, WA
206-283-0621
duff@nobiomassburn.org
www.nobiomassburn.org

Graphic: thatsmycongress.com


SHELTON BLOG NOTE:

No Biomass Burn has yet to receive a response from Sen. Cantwell. Nor have any other of the numerous concerned citizens in our area, who have written the Senator these past months regarding biomass incineration, received any reply or acknowledgment as far as we know. Has anyone received a response?