House votes to scuttle ban on high-carbon defense fuels

The House approved a GOP amendment Thursday that would block the Defense Department from enforcing a ban on federal procurement of alternative fuels with higher greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil-based fuels like gasoline and diesel.

The amendment to the fiscal 2012 defense spending bill would prevent use of the bill’s funds to implement the ban contained in sweeping 2007 energy legislation that cleared the House and Senate with strong bipartisan support.

The House approved Rep. Bill Flores’ (R-Texas) amendment by voice vote.

“We must ensure that our military becomes more energy-independent and that it can effectively and efficiently rely on domestic and more stable sources of fuel,” Flores said on the House floor.

He said the military should not be “burdened with wasting its time studying fuel emissions,” and that its fuel choices should not be restricted “based on extreme environmental views, policies and regulations.”

But Norm Dicks (Wash.), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, attacked the amendment to block funding for what’s commonly known as Section 526, its numerical place in the 2007 law.

“This provision has spurred development of advanced biofuels. These fuels are being successfully tested and proven today on U.S. Navy jets at supersonic speeds. It's a testament to American ingenuity,” he said. “Unfortunately, Section 526 is under assault by those who disagree with advanced biofuels production.”

A senior Navy official told a House committee last month that Section 526 has been an “effective policy tool.”

The military has an array of programs to use alternative fuels in planes and other vehicles.

The amendment is one of several GOP-led attacks on Section 526, which prevents contracts for alternative or synthetic fuels with higher “lifecycle” emissions — that is, the total emissions from production, combustion and other steps along the way — than conventional fuels.

The provision – authored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) — was largely aimed at blocking the purchase of coal-based liquid fuels — an industry that hasn’t taken off anyway.

But it has also raised fears about complicating acquisition of fuels from refineries that use oil from Canada’s greenhouse-gas-intensive oil sands projects, which represent a growing source of U.S. supply.

“If you took a literal reading of section 526, theoretically the military would not be able to use any of those fuels since the oil sands as a source is considered to be banned by Section 526,” Flores said.