December 7, 2022

While we commend the House and Senate for removing many of the longstanding environmental riders from their respective Interior & Environment appropriations bills, we ask that you exclude all the anti-environmental legacy riders from the final appropriations package and refrain from adding new ones. [...] It is scientifically indefensible to characterize forest biomass energy as “carbon neutral” and inappropriate for Congress to legislate the science of biomass and climate change. [...] Multiple credible and deliberative scientific bodies in the US and internationally, including the IPCC and the EPA’s own Science Advisory Board, have rejected the notion that burning wood for energy is categorically carbon neutral. [...] On the contrary, the science has continued to mount that promoting forest biomass for energy can have significant damaging impacts on the climate 1 and our native forest ecosystems. [...] While we appreciate that both the House and the Senate amended the language in their respective bills this year to remove the objectionable “carbon neutrality” language, we believe that the new language is still problematic.