Law360, New York ( March 15, 2016, 10:53 AM EDT) -- What is the bioeconomy? The February 2016 Federal Activities Report on the Bioeconomy describes it as a loose-knit, diverse group of commercial activities with their common frame of reference being the deployment of renewable resources — plants, trees and vegetation — to make useful products, create jobs in rural areas, improve national energy security and help to lower our carbon footprint.[1] This useful and ambitious report was announced at the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference by Dr. Catherine Woteki, undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Research, Education and Economics (REE) mission area and the department's chief scientist. The central theme of the report is its Billion Ton Bioeconomy Vision, transforming the United States into the world's leading bioeconomy by producing one billion tons of biomass to power the development of nonfood products sustainably by 2030. A billion tons is a lot of biomass for growing the industrial manufacturing base, but it's modest compared to the massive bioeconomy represented by food, and achievable without compromising food security....