Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I am very happy to be here today on behalf of Canada's biofuel industry to talk about waste management and landfills in Canada.

Founded in 1984, the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association is the country's leading advocate for the economic and environmental benefits of biofuels, and represents the full spectrum of Canada's domestic biofuels industry.

Across the country, Canada's renewable fuels plants are generating gross economic benefits in excess of $3.5 billion to the Canadian economy every year, and have created more than 14,000 direct and indirect jobs.

In April CRFA launched our industry's new vision and action plan, “Evolution and Growth”. I believe all committee members received copies in advance of my testimony. This is the first comprehensive plan on renewable fuels in Canada in several years, and it makes six policy recommendations for the continued growth and expansion of biofuels use and production in Canada.

A big part of our plan is making Canada a clean energy superpower and transitioning today's ethanol and biodiesel plants into the biorefineries of the future. This work is well under way. In fact, last week I was at the inauguration of Enerkem's biorefinery in Edmonton.

Municipal solid waste is an environmental issue for everyone and every city around the world. As you know, some cities cart their trash to other cities or other countries, expending both capital and energy to manage a problem that is not going away. There is no doubt that conservation is always going to be the first, best solution, but with a growing population and growing economy, no matter how much we reduce, reuse, and recycle, we will still have municipal solid waste.

CRFA members are already working to divert waste from landfills and create energy simultaneously. As mentioned, Enerkem opened the world's first commercial-scale waste-to-biofuels biochemicals plant last week, and in Varennes, Quebec, GreenField Specialty Alcohols is treating organic waste retrieved from the residential, industrial, commercial, and institutional sectors to produce biogas. An anaerobic digester will be installed on the site of an existing corn-ethanol plant, and will use organic waste from local south shore communities to displace a portion of the plant's natural gas use.

This will provide a new source of clean, renewable fuel and high-quality compost for direct use on agricultural fields. The facility will accommodate the retrieval and treatment of more than 79,000 metric tons of organic matter annually. Construction of this new facility is scheduled to begin in July and is expected to be completed by September 2015.

On the same site, GFSA is partnering with Enerkem to incorporate its thermochemical technology to produce cellulosic ethanol from industrial waste, diverting even more waste from landfills.

It is often said that every challenge is an opportunity. Here we have a garbage challenge, if not a garbage problem, and a renewable fuels opportunity that will reduce municipal solid waste and reduce the impact on the environment of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels. There is a double GHG benefit because, left untreated, the municipal solid waste will in time degrade further and create additional GHGs.

The environmental need is real. The environmental benefits are clear. What we need now is a strategy on how to get there. All municipalities can look to the Enerkem-Edmonton partnership as a model. Instead of paying tipping fees to bury waste, Edmonton chose to make strategic investments, investing capital in technologies that will do away with trash forever by converting it into energy and chemicals.

Any municipality that is spending any public funds to deal with trash, either burying it or carting it away, should take a hard look at how that capital is being deployed. Those fees—a sunk cost—could be invested into technologies that will do away with the trash forever by converting it into energy or chemicals.

Municipalities are only one of the many partners that are needed. The federal and provincial governments have their own roles to play. Specifically, we want to ensure that Canada continues to produce and use more clean-burning and waste-diverting renewable fuels.

Cellulosic biofuels produced from waste are indistinguishable from traditional ethanol made from corn or wheat, but as you can imagine, this type of technology is incredibly capital intensive and the investment risk for these projects is considerable. In Canada this is further frustrated by the fact that other jurisdictions are aggressively pursuing this investment capital and offering aggressive policy incentives. The United States has a volumetric requirement for cellulosic fuels, as well as financial incentives for the production and use of cellulosic fuels, essentially drawing venture capital to the U.S. like a magnet.

To help Canadian producers secure investment and produce these fuels in Canada, we are asking the federal government to remove the excise tax on cellulosic fuels. In the past, tax exemptions for ethanol and biodiesel helped to kick-start those industries in Canada.

A second item, which we believe will go a long way in promoting the use of these cellulosic fuels, is appropriately measuring the fair value of the GHG reductions that they create. Cellulosic fuels reduce GHGs by over 60% compared to petroleum-based gasoline. Ensuring the ability to obtain a fair value for those environmental benefits is key to the success of all renewable fuels. If producers could get a fair value for those emissions reductions, the margin between advanced biofuels and its competition would shrink even further.

Finally, higher ethanol blends need to be available at the pumps for Canadian consumers. The corporate average fuel economy rules, introduced by this government to harmonize fuel economy standards across North America, will require fuel economy improvements, starting in the 2017 model year vehicles. That is not very far away. Original equipment manufacturers, including Ford, General Motors, and Mercedes, are asking for higher octane fuels in order to meet the needs of their CAFE obligations, and there is no cheaper cleaner source of octane than ethanol.

In the past, our fuel infrastructure has not kept pace with technology. Just ask the owners of over three million vehicles on our roads today that can take up to 85% ethanol. Consumers deserve a choice at the pumps, and right now there is no choice at all.

CRFA is calling on federal and provincial governments to make strategic investments in infrastructure, and encourage pump turnover from existing fuel providers, independent retailers, and new market entrants to provide opportunities for consumers to choose these higher-level blends. Those higher-level blends can and should include cellulosic biofuels from waste.

Today is a time of real environmental challenge, but there is also an opportunity. Renewable fuels technology gives us the opportunity to divert solid waste from our landfills, reduce GHGs from our environment, and produce fuels that are sustainable. It's an opportunity that is ours for the taking.

Thank you. I would be happy to answer your questions.

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