She might as well have been trying to prove the existence of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster as far as the 1,300 people attending the conference in Orlando, Florida, were concerned.
In the audience, Bob Dinneen, President and Chief Executive of the Renewable Fuels Association, tapped in a message to his 349 followers on Twitter.
"EPA trying to defend the indefensible -- international indirect land use change" Dinneen, whose Twitter handle is "ethanolbob," wrote."They know there's no consensus and yet they persist. Why?"
That question was a persistent theme of this year's gathering. The RFA acknowledged that they had dodged a bullet when the EPA, in its final Renewable Fuels Standard rule, had a change of heart and decided that ethanol qualified after all. But what everyone really wants is for ILUC to be permanently discredited and go the way of all false notions, such as "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."
Indeed, later in the day, Bruce Dale, a professor of chemical engineering at Michigan State University called ILUC "a fundamentally perverse idea." During a well-attended debate on the concept, Dale explained that ILUC is based on a number of scenarios, using economic models to predict the consequences of rising demand for ethanol.
"Scenario is a polite word for guess," he said.
Dale suggested the same scenario could be used to "prove" that electric cars actually result in increased pollution. More electric cars means greater demand for electricity, which results in more coal-fired power plants being built to meet the demand, according to this scenario.
By the same logic, we can't afford to build more golf courses because land elsewhere would have to be converted to produce the crops that otherwise would have grown on the 17th fairway, Dale said. Ouch.
But give Dunham credit. The career EPA official acknowledged that the ILUC was included in last year's draft in part to spark discussion and scientific research that had been absent. The EPA got its wish. The draft standard awoke a sleeping giant and people suggested further studies, pointed to alternate academic analysis, and just complained loudly.
To its credit, the EPA listened.
"It is very helpful for us during a comment period to get real information and date and science," Dunham said. "There is no question that the science evolved significantly over the last year through this process and there's also no question that it's going to continue to evolve. Just because we issued a final rule doesn't mean we're done."
