Energy Act has escape clause permitting lawmakers to waive mandates if advanced biofuel development stalls

US Senator Jeff Bingaman told Newsweek that the Energy Act has an escape clause if lawmakers don’t feel that the US is making sufficient progress in developing viable advanced biofuels technologies. if the US “can’t meet the [biofuels] goals in any particular year then we can adjust the requirement,” he said. “If it turns out the use of biofuels doesn’t prove to be a valid way to offset our need for petroleum products then we would have to put more emphasis on something else like plug-in hybrids. The truth is we are trying to move ahead in the various areas where we think technology will provide us with solutions. At this point, we don’t know what will prove to me the most useful.”

Under the Act, the nation will increase its consumption of ethanol by to 15 billion gallons by 2015 and to 1 billion gallons of biodiesel by 2012, but Conner said that corn yields are expected to increase in the intervening years. The US corn harvest was 13.2 billion bushels for 2007.

In Washington, acting agriculture secretary Charles Conner said that the US has more than enough acreage to produce ethanol and biodiesel required under the new Energy Independence Act.

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