The false promises and high cost of the low-carbon fuel mandate

Imagine a politician bragging about a policy that would reduce air pollution by one percent, ten years from now. Would you be impressed? How about spending $38 to get $1 worth of environmental benefit?

What if advocates promised that even though their policy didn’t create the farm jobs they promised last time, this time it will work?

Advocates of a “low-carbon fuel standard” make all these promises, although they aren’t this candid. A bill currently being considered by the Legislature, House Bill 1110, would follow in the footsteps of California and Oregon, forcing Washington drivers to pay more for gasoline supposedly to reduce carbon emissions.

The policy, however, is expensive and offers false hope for farmers and the environment. We know this because we’ve already seen the poor results elsewhere.

The low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) is a complicated government mandate to reduce the carbon-dioxide intensity of gasoline emissions. In California and Oregon, where they have imposed the LCFS, the cost is very high.

In Oregon, after just a few years, the cost is already $150 per metric ton of CO2. What does that mean at the gas pump? When the LCFS reaches its goal of reducing CO2 intensity by 10 percent, it will add about 13 cents per gallon of gasoline. This assumes the price won’t climb further. In the last year alone, the cost increased 150 percent.

California is even more expensive. There it costs about $190 per metric ton of CO2, which translates to 17 cents more per gallon.

What would we get for that extra cost? Not much.

There are several projects that will reduce a metric ton of CO2 for about five dollars. Supporters of the LCFS want us to pay $190, thirty-eight times as much, for the same CO2 reduction. Even those most concerned about climate change should cringe at the wastefulness, of money and opportunity to help the environment.

Although they grudgingly admit the cost is high, LCFS advocates argue it will also reduce air pollution, like particulate matter. In reality, an LCFS would do almost nothing. A study by the Washington State Department of Ecology found the LCFS would reduce particulate matter by about one percent, ten years from now. Ten years. One percent.

Finally, the biofuel companies who would profit from the law argue the LCFS would create jobs. This was the same promise Washington lawmakers made a decade ago when they mandated gasoline contain 10 percent ethanol. They said Eastern Washington farmers would profit from growing oilseeds like canola. It didn’t work.

Instead of buying crops from Washington farmers, biofuel refiners used rainforest-destroying palm oil. Additionally, the EPA changed the rules about biofuels, undercutting farmers who did make the transition to canola. Rather than profiting, farmers were left holding the bag.

Why would activists support something that experience and science demonstrate simply doesn’t work?

The simple answer is politics. Politicians and their special interest supporters need victories to show “leadership” on climate change. The symbolic value of appearing green is more important than effectively helping the environment. Even if the LCFS is expensive and ineffective, it does what politicians care most about: make them appear environmentally friendly.

The real work of reducing environmental impact is done on the ground by the people who have the knowledge and incentives to be efficient.

Farmers find ways to reduce fertilizer use. Trucking companies reduce emissions by becoming more fuel efficient. Drivers work from home occasionally. The best approaches work with people’s choices, not against them.

Trusting that complicated biofuel mandates will work this time — when they failed repeatedly in the past — is not a good bet, for our pocketbooks, or the environment.