PIERRE — The new Renewable Fuels Standard rules announced Wednesday by the Environmental Protection Agency call to triple U.S. biofuel production by 2022, which could increase net farm income by 36 percent while lowering gasoline and diesel costs.

So why are some South Dakota farmers up in arms about the standard?

Included in the proposal’s requirements that biofuels meet environmental standards is a controversial factor called “international, indirect land-use changes.”

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Without this factor, corn ethanol easily meets the EPA’s requirement that biofuels emit 20 percent less greenhouse gases than traditional gasoline. But if it’s included in EPA calculations, only ethanol made with the most modern processes might make the cut.

Ethanol supporters deride the indirect land use factor as unproven, speculative and wrong.

“We think it’s junk science, to be frank,” said Chris Studer, communications director for the South Dakota Farmers Union. “Indirect land use should not be (a factor) in any decisions that are made.”

But some scientists argue ethanol supporters are overlooking a major drawback to biofuels. Food shortages caused by a larger focus on biofuels by U.S. farmers could lead to overseas farmers cutting down rain forest to make up the shortfall.

Because natural environments like rain forest absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the destruction of those forests could lead to more carbon in the atmosphere.

But international indirect land use is still controversial in the scientific community.

“There’s very, very limited data to support what they’re saying,” said Gregg Carlson, a professor of plant science at South Dakota State University.

Carlson said new products can help farmers convert corn into ethanol while still producing as much animal feed as before by using corn stalks and ethanol byproducts to create feed.

“If we do that, we end up with more crude protein and total digestible nutrients than what we had with the corn by itself,” Carlson said. “How can you charge indirect land use when you actually have more feed now than you had before?”

Indirect land use is included in the EPA’s proposed renewable fuel standard. But while some studies considering indirect land use have found ethanol to be a worse emitter than regular gasoline, the EPA’s findings are more generous.

The agency’s report claims ethanol produced using advanced techniques will meet the EPA’s requirement that biofuels emit 20 percent less greenhouse gases than regular fuel.

Corn ethanol made with older techniques might not make the cut.

Gov. Mike Rounds said he’s been assured by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack — a former governor of Iowa — that Midwestern ethanol farmers won’t be affected by the rule.

“He has assured me that he has worked very, very hard so that the provisions regarding indirect land use should not affect ethanol producers in the upper Midwest,” Rounds said. “That’s great news.”

But many members of Congress, including Sen. John Thune and Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, aren’t trusting those assurances. Thune and Herseth Sandlin are supporting legislation to forbid the EPA from considering indirect land use.

“It would be a major setback for ethanol,” said Thune, who derided indirect land use science as “speculative” and “impossible, I think, to calculate and quantify.”

Herseth Sandlin described the Renewable Fuel Standard as a “mixed bag for the ethanol industry.”

“I’m pleased that the final rule recognizes corn ethanol’s clear superiority over gasoline in terms of greenhouse gas emissions,” Herseth Sandlin said.

“However, EPA’s inclusion of international indirect land use calculations as part of the final rule, and then incorrectly applying those calculations only to corn-based ethanol, is unacceptable and will require corrective legislation.”

The EPA rule takes effect July 1.