I'll refrain from making too many wisecracks about cow emissions. This is, after all, a family newspaper and I do have standards.

The California Energy Commission stepped into the issue the other day, filling a room with 100 energy entrepreneurs, developers, lobbyists and utility executives, plus a smattering of consumer advocates and environmentalists.

The discussion focused on regulations governing gas used to fire generators, but not just any gas. The focus was biogas produced at landfills and from agricultural waste, including that which is emitted by cattle.

California is loaded with cows, each happily leaving behind potentially gas-producing waste. But in testimony before the Energy Commission, representatives from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Gas turned up their collective noses at California biogas in its many forms.

They cited an array of issues. Its quality may not measure up to standards. There are air quality issues to worry about. There are water quality issues. Regulations discourage its use. Some California pipelines are ill-equipped to handle some biogas. Surely, no one would dare risk weakening pipelines to the point that one might explode and endanger lives.

However, in 2008, PG&E struck a 10-year agreement to buy gas created at Huckabay Ridge Anaerobic Digestion Facility, which employs 14 people who convert the waste of 10,000 cows into natural gas.

A publication called Manure Manager, probably the most respected publication in manure management, quoted an executive at Element Markets LLC, which owns Huckabay Ridge:

"A project like Huckabay Ridge has the benefit of providing natural gas, renewable power, and being greenhouse gas neutral or reducing greenhouse gases."

That sounds like exactly the sort of innovative alternative energy project that you'd find in California. Except that Huckabay Ridge is in the heart of Texas' cattle country.

"There is no difference between the cows," said Sacramento lobbyist Michael Boccadoro, who represents California dairy interests that hope to get into the waste-to- energy business. "The difference is in the rules surrounding those emissions."

Of the roughly 170 gas-producing bio-digesters operating in the United States, there are, at most, 11 in California, and four in the San Joaquin Valley. You'd think there would be a few more. California is the largest dairy-producing state in the union. The valley has roughly 17 percent of all the dairy cattle in the entire United States, and many of the larger dairies are suitable for digesters.

Like all California utilities, PG&E must comply with a state law signed earlier this year by Gov. Jerry Brown requiring that it obtain 33 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

Because Huckabay Ridge's gas comes from a renewable source, PG&E can claim credit toward its goal of attaining the 33 percent renewable standard.

Skeptics ruminated at the hearing this week whether a single molecule of biogas produced in Texas actually makes its way to California. There is no direct pipeline from Texas into California.

But the California Energy Commission, seeking to encourage the use of renewable energy, creatively concluded years ago that biogas could enter a pipeline 1,600 miles away, take a few turns and, in theory, end up in California where it is used to fire PG&E power plants. As a result, PG&E can claim credit for using a renewable energy source.

Like PG&E, other California energy producers, seeking to burnish their "green" credentials, also claim to use biogas produced in other far-away states. What's more, California energy providers pay a premium for out-state-biogas, often subsidized by Californians' money.

At the hearing, experts offered an array of reasons why the practice of using out-of-state biogas makes sense. Some testified that it doesn't matter if biogas is produced in Texas or, for that matter, Ireland. Gas from cow emissions in faraway places reduces overall greenhouse gas emissions, to the benefit of us all.

That's reasonable. Climate change is a global issue. The depletion of fossil fuel is a national and international problem. We all should be pleased that 14 people in Stephenville, Texas, have jobs, and that cattle waste is being put to good use in Texas.

But here's the issue: 2 million Californians are out of work, and California ratepayers and taxpayers' money is being spent to subsidize a biogas development in Texas.

See, I refrained from making references to bovine emissions. But it wasn't easy, given California's hypocritical biogas policy.

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