House Agriculture Committee chairman Collin Peterson (D., Minn.) sent a message to the Obama Administration today not to count on his support for climate change legislation.

"I'm off the train," Peterson said May 6 during a strongly worded statement at a hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency's new proposal for assessing indirect effects of ethanol production on greenhouse gas emissions. Peterson predicted that the EPA proposal, combined with the climate change legislation under consideration, could "kill off corn ethanol."

Peterson said, "I will not support any kind of climate change bill -- even if you fix this -- because I don't trust anybody anymore. I've had it."

Peterson said his position was not negotiable. "I don't have any confidence. The only way I would consider supporting any climate change legislation would be if it was ironclad that these agencies had no ability to do any rulemaking of any kind whatsoever ... (that) we could be absolutely guaranteed that these folks would not get involved," he said.

Following his statement at the hearing, Peterson told reporters he had notified both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Cal.) and the White House of his position.

Peterson charged that corn ethanol had been singled out by its opponents for assessment of its indirect land impacts, while petroleum, which has a much larger carbon footprint, was not subject to the same scrutiny.

He made his remarks as Margo Oge, EPA director of transportation and air quality, prepared to testify on the agency's proposed rulemaking, which was unveiled May 4 with more than 1,000 pages of rule language and background. There is a lively debate among scientists on how accurately the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions can be calculated from land use for biofuel crops.

A U.S. Department of Energy briefing document on the controversy is online at www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/obp_science_response_web.pdf.