RMHPBA Newsletter Aug 2015.pdf

HPBA Government Affairs Continued
Federal Forest Reform Legislation
The full House passed federal forest reform
legislation (H.R. 2647) that shows real promise for
delivering needed reform principles. For one, it is a
national bill that will cover the entire federal forest system,
unlike Senate bills in the last Congress that took a
more rifle shot approach at only Western forests.
The bill moves away from some of the hard,
board feet timber production targets that have drawn
opposition in the past and embraces an approach that
expands on existing Forest Service authorities that will
accomplish the same objective. A good example of the
legislation’s build- out of categorical exclusion authority
which was granted to the Forest Service under the
2008 Farm Bill. Under a categorical exclusion, the
Forest Service can approve forest management projects
under an expedited environmental review process.
Click here to continue reading and to take action.
Pro-Biomass Congressional Letters
A Senate letter that highlights the carbon
benefits of biomass and biomass energy has 46 Senate
signatories that demonstrate a bipartisan mix of support
for biomass energy and its carbon benefits. The
letter, lead by Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jeff
Merkley (D-OR) was sent to EPA Administrator Gina
McCarthy, DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz, and U.S. Department
of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
The communication will be useful not only for
our advocacy work with the departments and agencies,
but with the media as well. A steady stream of negative
stories have been trickling out of national media, highlighting
claims that biomass energy has a larger carbon
profile than fossil-based energy. The claims are based
on the flawed premise/calculation that forest-based
bioenergy starts with a carbon debt to the atmosphere,
which disregards the fact that the tree from which the
pellet or other biomass fuel originated has been sequestering
carbon from the atmosphere over its lifetime.
An effort to produce a similar letter supporting
biomass energy has begun in the House.
Federal Regulations
DOE’s Proposed Energy Conservation Standards
for Residential Furnaces
Not to be confused with DOE’s hearth products
rule, the Gas Furnace Rule proposes a national
mandate that all non-weatherized natural gas furnaces
operate at 92 percent annual fuel utilization efficiency
(AFUE) regardless of the physical structure in which
they operate and the economic circumstances of the
customer. The American Gas Association (AGA) submitted
extensive comments to DOE at the close of the
comment period, on July 10, 2015.
EPA: Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting
Test Kit Comments
Last month, EPA hosted a meeting for stakeholders
to discuss the reliability and availability of lead
test kits in the field. There certainly are issues of reliability
with currently available test kits, many of which
produce false-positives resulting in compliance with
requirements for renovators working in an environment
with lead paint. HPBA submitted comments to
the EPA on July 6, 2015, which focused on three issues:
(1) the lack of a well-developed lead test kit market; (2)
the need for an updated economic analysis; and (3) to
encourage the EPA to not consider x-ray fluorescent
(XRF) analyzers as an alternative or replacement for
lead test kits.
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