The California State Assembly’s Committee on Appropriations on June 24 voted 13 to zero to advance SB 88, a bill that aims to integrate agricultural and forestry biomass into the state’s climate policies by promoting the beneficial use of clean biomass conversion.
The legislation builds on the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which created requirement to reduce statewide greenhouse gas (GHG) emission by 40% below a 1990 baseline by 2030. The state currently requires an 85% GHG emissions reduction by 2045, with a goal to reach net-zero by that time.
As part California’s climate law, state agencies are required to prepare and approve a scoping plan to achieve the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions in GHG emissions. The scoping plan is to be updated at least once every five years. The most recent scoping plan was released in 2022.
Under SB 88, the state policy would be updated to incentivize the use of biomass resources to reduce the negative impacts of catastrophic wildfires and pile burning while allowing necessary prescribed fires to take place at a level that does not compromise public health, progress on climate action or ecological sustainability.
Specifically, the bill would require state agencies to develop a standardized system for quantifying direct carbon emissions and decay from fuel reduction activities for the purposes of meeting the accounting requirements for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. State agencies would also be required to adopt a method of quantification of the lifecycle emissions from alternative uses of forest and agricultural biomass residues.
In addition, state agencies would be required to include in the next scoping plan a strategy to support beneficial carbon removal products, including biochar, that are generated from agricultural or forest biomass.
To the extent feasible, the legislation directs the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to require all state-funded forest health projects to include an appropriate forest biomass resource disposal component that includes a scientifically based, verifiable method to determine the amount of biomass to be physically removed and the amount to be burned by prescribed fire.
The State Energy Resource Conservation and Development Commission would be required to include a value proposition of using agricultural and forest biomass resources for the production of low- and negative-carbon liquid and gaseous fuels from noncombustion conversion technology methods and other emerging and innovative approaches.
SB 88 was first introduced in January, and has been amended several times. Additional information, including a full copy of the bill, is available on the California legislature website.
