Free Republic

In the early 2000s, ethanol was touted as the solution to a variety of ills plaguing our nation. As is currently the case, those who worshipped at the altar of ethanol placed their faith in a false idol. Early in the new millennium, oil prices began to rise and natural gas prices shot up. Doomsayers lacking an understanding of history and economics popped up, as they always do, to proclaim the end of cheap oil was nigh. “Peak oil” pundits ruled the airwaves and editorial pages. The United States had recently suffered the horrific terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration's latest plan on ethanol, the corn-based renewable fuel, probably will not have a major effect on pump prices, but could have political reverberations in Iowa and other farm states in the 2016 presidential campaign. Under the proposed rule announced Friday, the amount of ethanol in the gasoline supply would increase in coming years, just not as much as set out under federal law. That approach drew criticism from ethanol and farm groups that have pushed to keep high volumes of ethanol in gasoline. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has called for a robust...

Des Moines — Only weeks after taking this key state in the presidential race by surprise, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker defended his front-runner status in Iowa by pledging to support a federal ethanol mandate, shifting his position on renewable fuels at a Republican roundup on farm issues. The GOP governor and a lineup of other major potential presidential contenders — including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — took the stage before hundreds of spectators and media at the Iowa Ag Summit at the state fairgrounds here. In the moderated discussion with ethanol entrepreneur Bruce Rastetter, Walker dropped his previous flat...

Following a meeting with President Barack Obama's top energy adviser, Minnesota Senator Al Franken on Thursday said he believes the Environmental Protection Agency will raise its biofuels blending targets when it finalizes the 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard. "We are hoping for and we definitely believe we're going to get higher numbers than in the preliminary rule, and we hope they're significantly higher," Franken said on a conference call with reporters. Franken and eight other Democratic senators met with Obama adviser John Podesta to discuss the biodiesel mandate within the 2014 RFS, though Franken said ethanol issues came up, as well....

The US Environmental Protection Agency issued final Tier 3 emissions control requirements for motor fuels and vehicles to meet by Jan. 1, 2017. The regulations address one major concern from refiners by keeping sulfur limits per gallon at existing levels, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said. “Frankly, what [the American Petroleum Institute] and others were relying on was an outdated estimate based on what they thought we’d propose, not what we actually proposed let alone what we actually put in the regulation following public hearings and extensive public comments,” McCarthy said during a Mar. 4 teleconference. “The per gallon sulfur cap...

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley sides with the Iowa Corn Growers Association as ethanol production came under fire. According to an investigation by the Associated Press, ethanol production puts added stress on the environment through erosion and fertilizer pollution. AP reported that “the ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today.” The Iowa Corn Growers Association disagreed, saying they have reduced fertilizer use and that plants have become more efficient in utilizing what they produce.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of 10 U.S. Senators introduced a bipartisan bill on Thursday to eliminate the corn ethanol mandate, arguing that current law raises the cost of food and animal feed and damages the environment. The bill, introduced by Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat; Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican; and eight cosponsors, faces an uphill battle as many lawmakers from agricultural states support the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)that dictates that rising volumes of ethanol made from grains, including corn, be blended into motor fuel. Feinstein said the bill supports development of advanced biofuels, including those from made from...

Court battles over the Colorado and Minnesota renewable energy mandates could potentially mark the beginning of the end for similar laws in other states, including Michigan. In June, Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Court wrote that Michigan's in-state renewable energy mandate violates the Commerce Clause and is therefore unconstitutional. Judge Posner's statement did not have the weight of law because the issue wasn't directly before him. Nonetheless, many received it as a wake-up call and possible harbinger of things to come. In 2008, the Michigan Legislature passed a law mandating that 10...

According to the Worldwatch Institute, the US Department of Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack, is pushing for an increase of the current maximum of 10.2% ethanol in gasoline to 15-20%. Much of that is supposed to come from corn and, later, from cellulose (wood). Under the current federal “Renewable Fuel Standard” the US is already slated to increase its use of biofuels from 9 billion gallons in 2008 to 36 billion gallons by 2022. That standard does not even include the proposed increase of the ethanol content of common gasoline. The proposed revision would be a really bad idea and let...

I am not a fan of ethanol. Because I work in the automotive industry, I have firsthand experience with the effects it has on engines, both small and large. You can read about those effects at this link. The effects I have written about before are all associated with the engines themselves. What I have not focused on before is the effect ethanol has on the environment. I was surprised to see an investigative report from the Associated Press earlier in the week that did just that. I just haven't had the time to write about it until now. When...

With two words, the U.S. environment regulator may be handing oil refiners the biggest win of a long battle to beat back the seemingly inexorable rise of ethanol fuel. In a leaked proposal that would significantly scale back biofuel blending requirements next year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says the blend wall - the 10 percent threshold of ethanol-mixed gasoline that is at the crux of the lobbying war - is an "important reality". The agency's rationale for a cut in the volume of ethanol that must be blended echoes an argument the oil industry has been making for...

Briggs & Stratton Co. has never liked ethanol because it can make a mess of things at the worst possible time -- like when you need to cut the grass and your lawn mower spits, sputters and just won't start. Often, water in the gasoline is the culprit, according to Briggs, the world's largest manufacturer of small gasoline engines. And the company says the biofuel additive ethanol, which is contained in most of the gasoline people buy today, can attract moisture out of the air like steel sticks to a magnet. Moisture in gasoline is a big problem for boats,...

Thanks to the ethanol mandate, more than 40 percent of the nation's corn crop now goes into the production of a useless fuel that hardly anyone would buy if the government didn't require it. That's up from just 17 percent in 2005, before the mandate went into effect. Only 36 percent of the corn crop now goes for feed, and 24 percent goes for food. Obama could solve this problem instantly by suspending the federal ethanol mandate -- something his EPA actually can do unilaterally and legally. Instead, Obama will buy up meat -- a move that meat producers say...

After a year full of victories for big government legislation in Congress, the forces of statism seemed to have met their Waterloo with the farm/food stamp bill. The more people learned of the profligate food stamp spending and the market distorting, risk-inducing agriculture programs contained in the bill, the more they spoke out against this monstrosity. Speaker Boehner has refused to bring the bill to the floor so far. Seeing their political stock rapidly diminish, the bipartisan coalition of government-run agriculture took a page out of Rahm Emanuel’s playbook and decided not to let the crisis of the summer drought...

USDA-backed biofuels plant in Soperton, Georgia has lost taxpayers nearly $60 millionWASHINGTON D.C.—Upon reports Tuesday that a USDA-backed biofuels plant in Soperton, Georgia has lost taxpayers nearly $60 million, IER President Tom Pyleissued the following statement:“Apparently U.S. taxpayers have yet to discover life after Solyndra. Today’s announcement that a USDA-backed biofuels plant has been sold for pennies on the dollar—at a loss of nearly $60 million to U.S. taxpayers —further underscores the point that the federal government should not be in the venture capital business.The Bush administration secured the Range Fuels loan, and the Obama administration doubled down on the...

Interesting timing, especially when some biomass companies are switching from wood chips to corn, because they couldn’t turn a profit on wood chips. Looks like all the wheels are coming off the bus now.To Survive, Some Biofuels Companies Give Up on Biofuels – Technology Review Gevo, a prominent advanced-biofuels company that has received millions in U.S. government funding to develop fuels made from cellulosic sources such as grass and wood chips, is finding that it can’t use these materials if it hopes to survive. Instead, it’s going to use corn, a common source for conventional biofuels. What’s more, most of...

The Iowa corn growers association released a report card today, rating Republican primary candidates on their support of "corn grower's legislative priorities." Candidates who oppose subsidies, like Representative Ron Paul and Herman Cain got "D." grades (Only their criticism of the EPA spared them "F"s. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich got the highest grade. He and President Obama were praised for their support of economically disastrous policies like ethanol subsidies.

[snip] So the United States now imports ethanol from Brazil to meet the federal mandate for ethanol use, and yet those imports are subject to a 54-cents-per-gallon tariff to protect the U.S. domestic ethanol industry. Ethanol is also imported from Canada, which is not subject to a tariff, and owing to trade agreements and foreign policy considerations, the United States is committed to importing ethanol from all Caribbean Basin countries, with special set-asides for El Salvador and Costa Rica. Remember: Despite all this import and export activity, ethanol policy was justified on grounds of U.S. energy independence. Yet, just as...

Senate Democrats are making hay today with yesterdays' vote by a majority of Senate Republicans to repeal the tax credit for ethanol in defiance of Grover Norquist's "Taxpayer Protection Pledge." Here's the e-mail blast from Chuck Schumer and Bob Menendez, with a conference call coming: "In Watershed Moment, 34 Senate Republicans Broke With Right Wing Ideology Yesterday -- Vote Means Tax Expenditures Now Fair Game To Reduce Deficit...Schumer, Menendez to Call Yesterday’s Vote 'Sea Change' That Will Boost Movement to Finally End Wasteful Oil and Gas Subsidies." They are correct. The vote breaks GOP orthodoxy that for decades has pretended...

...The government’s mandate of ethanol usage distorts energy markets and raises prices for consumers. In order to fully repeal the government’s unfair, anti-free market support of ethanol, all three policies must be eliminated—the mandate, the tax credit, and the tariff. Only the combination of the Coburn and DeMint amendments completely kills the government’s support of the ethanol regime. The DeMint amendment which abolishes the death tax insures that repealing the ethanol tax credit is done in a way that prevents additional money from flowing to the appropriations committees. ATR has always opposed all forms of government support of ethanol. Our...