US GAO warns that trade chaos will ensue unless global standards for biofuels are developed

In Washington, the Government Accountability Office said that biofuels trade would decline and energy prices would climb unless global standards for biofuels are developed. The GAO said that “the array of incompatible gasoline and diesel blending stocks, and final blended products that cannot be interchanged at the retail level” are reducing opportunities for trade. The GAO recommended that the Departments of Transportation and Energy “encourage uniform biofuel and petroleum product blending practices.”

The Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC), which met in Washington in November, is expected to propose definitive standards for biofuels trade.

Dr. Brenda Haendler, speaking at the Biofuels in the Americas conference in Miami, said that the US State Department, working in cooperation with the government of Brazil, has established an initiative to coordinate a global set of biofuels standards and codes.

ANSI from the US, CEN from Europe and ABNT in Brazil are among the organizations which have conducted initial meetings and are now preparing a report to their respective countries on areas where the standards in the three regions are virtually identical, need only minor “tweaking”, or require major changes. The goal of the US is to coordinate standards at the first two levels in 2008.

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