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The Environmental Protection Agency has been wrestling with how to regulate biomass energy for years, but the Trump administration is expected to propose a new rule that might contribute to the boom in the U.S. wood pellet business, according to Inside Climate News.

Across the rural South, mill workers are churning out wood pellets from forests, and new pellet plants are being proposed in South Carolina, Arkansas and other southern states for markets in Europe and Asia. But an increasing number of scientists call out what they see as a dangerous carbon accounting loophole that threatens the 2050 goals of the Paris climate agreement.

"There were groups that were adamant that biomass should be treated as carbon neutral for regulatory purposes, yet that sort of defied the science," said IU McKinney Professor of Practice Janet McCabe. “There were other groups that were equally adamant that was not only incorrect as a matter of science but would lead to a really dangerous climate policy,” Professor McCabe said.

EPA convened a panel "to create scientific clarity," but the panel did not conclude its work before the administration left, she said.

Professor McCabe, director of the IU Environmental Resilience Institute, was the acting assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation at the EPA from 2013 through 2017.