B&C® Biobased and Sustainable Chemicals Blog

By Lynn L. Bergeson On May 2, 2019, DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) announced funding of approximately $11 million for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II research projects. Small businesses that demonstrated technical feasibility for innovations during Phase I were required to compete for Phase II funding. Eleven projects have been awarded the funds, which will be used to build prototypes or...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On May 8, 2019, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s (APHIS) Biotechnology Regulatory Services (BRS) announced the pilot launch of its new online permitting system: APHIS eFile. Launching on July 23, 2019, APHIS will be inviting, at the end of May, those who have been issued a BRS permit or notification in the past two years to apply for the pilot program. The plan is for BRS to transition fully to APHIS eFile in...

By Lynn L. Bergeson From March 4-8, 2019, DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) hosted the 2019 Project Peer Review in Denver, CO. According to BETO, this was one of the largest Peer Review events in BETO history, with almost 600 attendees present. The purpose of the event was for bioenergy researchers to present results from early-stage R&D projects across BETO’s technology areas. These presentations, as of May 2, 2019, have been made available online for public access, and...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On April 30, 2019, 15 U.S. Senators signed and submitted a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, urging him to protect U.S. consumers and account for the ethanol blend wall when setting annual target volumes under the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) requirements. According to the letter, a decrease in consumer demand for gasoline has occurred since the RFS Program was passed into law. Instead of the original 170 billion gallons...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On May 7, 2019, Energy Secretary Rick Perry announced a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funding opportunity of up to $89 million in support of innovative, advanced manufacturing research and development (R&D) projects. The opportunity aims to tackle key DOE priorities, which include domestic manufacturing for energy storage. Perry stated that “[e]mbracing new technologies that drive innovation in American manufacturing is the key to creating real-world progress that...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On April 25, 2019, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) held an event to provide an overview of their latest publication, a book titled Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States. Providing an overview of the book, a few of the authors were part of a panel discussion opened by William K. Reilly, former EPA Administrator under President George H. W. Bush. In his opening remarks, Mr. Reilly emphasized the potential existing with politics to change culture to...

By Lynn L. Bergeson In April 2019, Navius Research Inc. (Navius Research) published a report titled “Biofuels in Canada 2019: Tracking biofuel consumption, feedstocks and avoided greenhouse gas emissions.” Using public data, the report analyzes the volume of transportation biofuels consumed in each Canadian province and estimates the impact of this consumption on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and transportation energy costs. An increase in both ethanol and renewable fuel consumption...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On April 29, 2019, the National Chicken Council submitted a letter to EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality outlining the potentially negative impact of the changes to the biofuels policy on the poultry industry. In his letter to EPA, Mike Brown, President of the National Chicken Council, reported concern with EPA’s proposal on year-round ethanol-15 (E15) use under the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) Program. The National Chicken Council believes that EPA...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On April 26, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (D.C. Circuit) issued its order on the petition for review of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final rule on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) Requirements (82 Fed. Reg. 37520 (Aug. 11, 2017)), which denied the petition for review on all but one claim.  Petitioner Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) challenged five distinct features of the...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On April 17, 2019, Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Banque de France, and Frank Edelson, Chair of the Network for Greening the Financial Services (NGFS), published an open letter on the financial implications of global warming.  Co-signed by the NGFS coalition, consisting of 34 central banks, the letter warns of global warming’s potential damage to infrastructure and private property, negative human health...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On April 17, 2019, the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA), a Biobased and Renewable Products Advocacy Group (BRAG®) member, spoke at a press conference alongside Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Naig, on how the approval of small-refinery exemptions (SRE) for the 2018 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) blend levels would undermine RFS in an irreversible way.  IRFA’s Executive Director, Monte Shaw, pointed out that under current conditions all a refinery...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On April 23, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a proposed rule regarding its plan to review certain confidential business information (CBI) claims to protect the specific chemical identities of substances on the confidential portion of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory.  84 Fed. Reg. 16826.  The CBI claims that would be reviewed under this plan are those that were asserted on Notice of Activity (NOA) Form A’s filed in...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On April 15, 2019, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wrote an article for Medium Politics, titled “My plan for public lands.” In the article, Warren highlights the importance and value of U.S. public lands and the need to make them part of the climate solution rather than the issue. Emphasizing her position on corporate profits and how they should not be prioritized over local communities’ health and safety, Warren states that on her first day in office...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On April 16, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) announced the winners of DOE’s Solar Decathlon® Design Challenge, which was held at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO, from April 12-14, 2019. The Challenge consisted of ten contests in which student teams designed highly efficient and innovative buildings powered by renewable energy.  The winners are teams that best...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On April 12, 2019, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced the reopening of the public review and comment period for the draft Environmental Impact Statement (dEIS) and the preliminary Pest Risk Assessment (PRA). These two documents have been prepared in response to a permit application from a company requesting the environmental release of genetically engineered (GE) Citrus tristeza virus (CTV). The...

On April 12, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposed rule that would amend the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 8(a) Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) requirements and the TSCA Section 8(a) size standards for small manufacturers. The current CDR rule requires manufacturers (including importers) of certain chemical substances listed on the TSCA Chemical Substance Inventory (TSCA Inventory) to report data on chemical manufacturing, processing, and use every...

Last week, from April 3-5, 2019, Biofuels Digest hosted its annual Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference (ABLC) in Washington, D.C.  Among those present were various industry stakeholders, government representatives, and federal agency staffers. Innovative technologies were presented and much networking was done. The Biobased and Renewable Products Advocacy Group’s (BRAG®) presence was welcomed and provided an opportunity for industry stakeholders to gain insight into...

By Lynn L. Bergeson The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is offering an opportunity for funding to advance a bioenergy or biochemical production technology toward commercial scale through the construction and operation of a pilot plant. To be eligible for the AGRI Bioenergy/Biochemical Pilot Project Grant, applicants must be a Minnesota-based company, learning institution, local government unit, Native American Tribal community, or individual (including for-profit businesses and...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On April 4, 2019, DOE EERE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced the appearance of 23 journal articles from some of the nation’s leading biomass experts in the journal Frontiers in Energy Research. The collection of articles, titled Advancements in Biomass Feedstock Preprocessing: Conversion Ready Feedstocks, focuses on the many years of research and development into biomass preprocessing that has been largely supported by DOE EERE’s BETO....

By Lynn L. Bergeson On April 8, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) announced a new prize competition to support and accelerate the development of pumped storage hydropower (PSH). The prize, titled Furthering Advancements to Shorten Time (FAST) Commissioning for Pumped Storage Hydropower (PSH), seeks innovative solutions and technologies that can assist PSH developers facing non-regulatory challenges. It would also support...