Ethanol Scam Continues Bilking Taxpayers, Polluting the Environment, and Causing Auto Breakdowns
Either stupidity reigns or like much in Washington, money creates an Orwellian world where lies become the truth and Capitol Hill and the White House are bought and paid for by corporations, in this case the giant agribusiness industry and ethanol cheerleaders.
I wrote this in 2007: "As for ethanol promoters, that's a dirty secret that needs to be exposed. "The ethanol production process emits carcinogenic pollutants and greenhouse gases that contribute to global warning. It also enriches the coffers of Republican corporate agribusinesses like ADM, ranked as the tenth worst corporate air polluter, on the "Toxic 100" list of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts.
"So, quit with the ethanol. Stop yanking out chains, GM and Ford, and make cars that are as fuel efficient as Japanese models, now, not by 2016 or two decades from today. Congress, stop enabling your "profits and greed" corporate and lobbyist donors to screw regular working Americans. Get serious about renewable energy. Global warming is a reality and the Statue of Liberty
doesn't know how to swim."
In April, 2008 I wrote: "Not only are biofuels, like those of corn additives, damaging to the environment and causing stunning increases in food prices and availability, now from Germany comes the announcement that biofuels cause engine breakdowns in millions of cars.'
And now, almost two years later, from Ken Silverstein at Harper's, comes this:
"From the magazine’s current issue:
More than one major transportation-based industry in America besides Detroit is on the ropes. For the fourth time in our history the ethanol industry has come undone and is quickly failing nationally. Of course it’s one thing when Detroit collapsed with the economy; after all, that is a truly free-market enterprise and the economy hasn’t been good. But the fact that the ethanol industry is going bankrupt, when the only reason we use this additive is a massive government mandate, is outrageous at best.
Then again, the ethanol lobby and refiners have a solution to ethanol’s failure in America: Hire retired General Wesley Clark as your point man and lobby the government to increase the amount of ethanol in our fuel to 15%. The problems with that proposition are real—unlike ethanol’s benefits.
"Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports:
From the Business Week article by Ed Wallace:The Obama administration on Tuesday will step up efforts to increase the availability of ethanol at filling stations and to speed up subsidies to struggling biofuel producers. But the trade-off is that the administration is also expected to propose a rule that could make certain biofuels look less climate-friendly.
At a news conference led by the heads of the Agriculture Department, Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency, the administration is expected to announce the creation of an interagency group that will be charged with forging a plan to encourage the production of more automobiles that can run on high-level ethanol blends, and increase the availability of high-level ethanol blends at gasoline stations."
"First, the primary job of the Environmental Protection Agency is, dare it be said, to protect our environment. Yet using ethanol actually creates more smog than using regular gas, and the EPA's own attorneys had to admit that fact in front of the justices presiding over the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1995 (API v. EPA).
"Second, truly independent studies on ethanol, such as those written by Tad Patzek of Berkeley and David Pimentel of Cornell, show that ethanol is a net energy loser. Other studies suggest there is a small net energy gain from it.
"Third, all fuels laced with ethanol reduce the vehicle's fuel efficiency, and the E85 blend drops gas mileage between 30% and 40%, depending on whether you use the EPA's fuel mileage standards (fueleconomy.gov) or those of the Dept. of Energy.
"Fourth, forget what biofuels have done to the price of foodstuffs worldwide over the past three years; the science seems to suggest that using ethanol increases global warming emissions over the use of straight gasoline. Just these issues should have kept ethanol from being brought back for its fourth run in American history.
"Don't let anybody mislead you: The new push to get a 15% ethanol mandate out of Washington is simply to restore profitability to a failed industry. Only this time around those promoting more ethanol in our gas say there's no scientific proof that adding more ethanol will damage vehicles or small gas-powered engines. With that statement they've gone from shilling the public to outright falsehoods, because ethanol-laced gasoline is already destroying engines across the country in ever larger numbers.
"Pushed into it by the corn growers' and ethanol refiners' lobbying organizations, today the EPA is starting to go through the public comment phase on increasing the level of ethanol in our gasoline from 10% to 15%. Time and time again we have heard from these groups, who now claim that there is zero scientific evidence that a 15% blend of ethanol would do any damage whatsoever if the mandate for ethanol were raised. As with all statements made by vested interests, few outsiders have actually taken the time to look and find out whether this statement was true.
"In fact, it's false."
So, why are the Departments of Agriculture and Energy and the EPA under the new Obama administration following the same damaging, incompetent pattern as the Bush regime?
Is it incompetence, or, like the Pentagon and Department of Justice, are there too many Bushite holdovers deliberately putting a wrench in the works?
This was supposed to be a time for real change, not destructive business as usual
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