(WI) Senators Split on Ethanol Bill; DNR Warns of Ozone Effect

All Headline News for WI ^ | February 5, 2006 | Anita Weier

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Ethanol has become a hot topic in the State Capitol, with legislators arguing about a proposal to require about 10 percent ethanol in regular-grade gasoline.

The Assembly approved the bill, AB15, on a 54-38 vote in December. The Senate has yet to vote on the bill and members are sharply divided.

The bill was approved by the Assembly despite a September report from the Department of Natural Resources that mandating ethanol in gasoline would worsen the state's ozone problem.

The DNR said that requiring 10 percent ethanol in the most-used grade of gasoline would pollute the air as much as a 350-megawatt coal-fired power plant and would likely result in more counties being identified in ozone health advisories.

Such a mandate would lead to higher volatile organic compound emissions and nitrogen oxide emissions, which form polluting ozone, according to the study. Oxides of nitrogen emissions, known as NOx, would then increase up 1 to 2 percent, or up to 13 tons on an average summer day, the study said.

To offset the increased pollution, the state would have to place a higher regulatory burden on utility and industrial companies, Al Shea, administrator of the DNR's division of air and waste, said in a written statement when the report was issued.

The bill consequently pits rural Wisconsin, where farmers hope to sell corn for ethanol production, against urban Wisconsin, where manufacturers fear that new regulations will fall on them and jobs might be lost as a result.

"We don't need new regulations on businesses, we need to stop the ethanol mandate," said Scott Manley, director of environmental policy at Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce. "This proposal will create more problems than it solves."

Those supporting the bill question the DNR study and point to favorable studies about the potential of ethanol. Supporters stress the economic benefits of ethanol, which they say could increase a corn farmer's income by $10 an acre, add good jobs and millions of dollars to the state's economy, and reduce dependence on imported oil.

"Farmers are on the front lines to provide energy for a better America and a more secure Wisconsin," said Paul Zimmerman of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau during a recent Capitol press conference where the Midwest was touted as "our Saudi Arabia."

Supporters also cite President Bush's State of the Union address, in which he called for cutting edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but also from wood chips, stalks and switchgrass. They also note that Gov. Jim Doyle called in his State of the State speech for the Legislature to send the ethanol bill to his desk so he could sign it into law.

Support for the bill has grown recently, as several environmental organizations shifted their support to the Wisconsin Ethanol Coalition. Clean Wisconsin and the Sierra Club praised bill author Stephen Freese, R-Dodgeville, for working cooperatively to strengthen air quality protections in the bill.

"We could not support AB 15 unless safeguards were built into this legislation," said Katie Nekola of Clean Wisconsin.

An amendment to the bill by the Senate Agriculture and Insurance Committee on Jan. 31 would allow the Department of Commerce to suspend the 10 percent mandate if the DNR finds that the use of ethanol is causing or contributing to violations of federal air quality standards.

"We are now confident that with the Clean Air Protection amendment and delaying the start-up date for E10 by a year (to October 2007) that the state has the opportunity to require offsets for any increase in ozone precursors, such as NOx and VOCs, and visibility impairments," said Caryl Terrell, chapter director of Sierra Club-Wisconsin. "We urge the Senate to adopt the Clean Air Protection Amendment."

The amendment also would allow other types of materials - including woody waste, switchgrass and weeds - to be used to produce ethanol.

But Rep. Neal Kedzie, R-Elkhorn, who voted against the bill in the Senate committee, is not sure whether the bill would be approved by the full Senate. Republicans are quite divided on the issue, he said, and so are Democrats. "There is no definitive study on this issue. The science is still evolving," he said. "We should not rush to judgment. Good public policy takes time."

[LurkingSince'98]

A quote to backup my previous post: "Hermitage Capital's Bill Browder has performed a regression analysis from past oil shocks and used them to calculate what might happen when the supply from an oil-producing country was cut off in six different hypothetical situations today. The fall of the House of Saud, a low probability event, generates a price of $262 a barrel. More realistic is the scenario where Iran declares an oil embargo, which Browder’s model indicates could cause oil to rise to $131 a barrel. Other scenarios include an embargo by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ($111 a barrel), civil war in Nigeria ($98 a barrel), unrest and violence in Algeria ($79 a barrel) and additional major attacks on infrastructure by the insurgency in Iraq ($88 a barrel). Even without these events transpiring, a “risk premium” is already built into the current energy markets." From:THE ENERGY SECTOR REMAINS VOLATILE February 5, 2006 by Joseph Dancy, LSGI Advisors, Inc. Adjunct Professor, SMU School of Law Gotta look at the big picture. Regards, Lurking

[Mr. Lucky]

BTU count is a great way to measure the ability of a fuel to boil water; it is less so as a way to predict the ability of a fuel to drive an internal combustion engine.

Ethanol obtains somewhat less mileage than gasoline in an engine optimized for gasoline, but will outperform gasoline in an engine optimized for ethanol. My 2006 Chevrolet Silverado gets about 10% worse mileage on ethanol than gasoline, but my 1972 Chevy Nova was greased lightening on ethanol.

[Steveone]

Hey thank you for the reply I will remember that!

[Marine_Uncle]

All these clowns are doing is haggling over BS. The real issue is where do we get the huge amounts of oil and new and upgraded refineries to keep those fleets of gas and desiel burning guzzlers on the road. No one after all these years has given any political clout to what was supposed to have happened during the 70's after all the emmision standards where fosted upon the public. This crap that over the long run new engines for trucks could not have been made fuel efficient is a bunch of BS. So we continue to have huge fleets suck huge amounts of gas yearly, and all the burden is placed on the private vehicles.
This is just one thing these goons have not addressed. The fart around in endless circles but will never get down to brass tacks for those things we need now.
And to many continue to keep under wraps the large lubrication industry, petrochemical plants, that need oil. Gas is only one part of the problem. Don't people realize the huge amount of oil fractions and all the end products derived from those cuts, e.g. plastics, pharmecetical products, in short just about everything one can think off. It all starts off as oil. Hell, at last in the past, huge amounts of ethenal where a by product of oil refineries. I realize the various methodologies to produce ethenal from other sources but just want to make a point. Oil is king. And we will always need huge amounts of it.
We need to find, develop huge oil drilling fields. There are no options. Wind power, yes, solar power, yes, re-vitalize our nuclear energy program for electricity, yes, and so on. But we still we need huge amounts of oil.