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...

Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) managed to turn a disagreement with a crowd of Iowa businesses and farmers into an applause line at the Iowa Agriculture Summit. Cruz reiterated his opposition to the Renewable Fuels Standard, a popular policy in Iowa that presents a thorny problem for many Republicans who campaign against crony capitalism but want to win the GOP presidential nomination. “I recognize that this is a gathering of a lot of folks where the answer you’d like me to give is ‘I’m for the RFS, darnit;’ that’d be the easy thing to do,” he said. “But I’ll tell...

Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Rand Paul (Ky.) are trying to avoid an ethanol landmine in Iowa. Both Republican senators have criticized federal subsidies for ethanol, which are popular in Iowa, the state hosting the first Republican contest in the 2016 race for the White House. Iowa kingmakers in the party such as Sen. Chuck Grassley want the Republican presidential nominee in 2016 to champion ethanol. That’s a problem for Cruz and to a lesser extent for Paul, who are both crisscrossing the state this week in advance of possible campaigns for the presidency. Cruz has introduced legislation that would...

fter years of starts and stops, the next frontier has finally arrived for biodiesel. Starting Tuesday, Minnesota will require all diesel fuel sold here to contain at least 10 percent biodiesel -- except during the winter, when the requirement will be 5 percent biodiesel. Currently, state law requires every gallon of diesel fuel to contain at least 5 percent biodiesel -- and 2 percent during the winter -- so supporters are excited to see Minnesota raise the bar to a highest-in-the-nation level.

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...

The long-tortured farm bill cleared Congress Tuesday, ending a two year struggle that split the old farm-food coalition as never before and dramatized the growing isolation of agriculture and rural America in an ever more urban House. Written off as dead just months ago, the giant five-year measure won final approval from the Senate on a 68-32 roll call and goes next to President Barack Obama for his signature.

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...

The Department of Energy withheld troubling cost and performance data on a major stimulus award from a federal watchdog before the company servicing the award went bankrupt, according to a report released on Tuesday. The report focuses on the department’s handling of a pair of federal awards worth about $126 million for ECOtality, a San Francisco-based green energy company that declared bankruptcy in September. DOE’s inspector general, which authored Tuesday’s report, released an audit in July that expressed concerns about the department’s management of ECOtality’s $100 million stimulus award for the installation of electric vehicle charging stations. The report revealed...

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,...

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...

Pixar Animation mastermind John Lasseter says the company has no environmental agenda, but with "Cars 2," the blockbuster outfit does tap into today's eco-mindedness with a plot driven by oil vs. a cleaner alternative. Debuting in U.S. theaters Friday, "Cars 2" sends race car Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) on a World Grand Prix circuit whose organizer fuels the vehicles with a green alternative called Allinol, prompting the bad guys to try to discredit the new power supply that threatens traditional gasoline.

Subsidies for ethanol are being put to the test again in the Senate Thursday, as budget cutters try to demonstrate a growing appetite in Congress to end special interest tax breaks to help reduce government borrowing. The Senate is scheduled to vote on two measures that would end subsidies for producing ethanol, a renewable, liquid fuel additive that comes mainly from corn in the U.S. One measure would repeal a $5 billion annual tax credit that provides 45 cents a gallon to oil refiners who mix ethanol with gasoline. The Senate rejected an identical measure Tuesday, 40-59, though some senators...

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...

WASHINGTON – The Senate refused to kill a $5 billion annual subsidy for ethanol on Tuesday, backing continued government aid for a Farm Belt-based industry over deficit reduction in an era of record red ink. The 40-59 vote, far short of the 60 needed to advance the measure, reflected regional as well as partisan differences, a split among Republicans — and anything but the final word on the issue. "We continue to spend money that we don't have on things that we don't need," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a prominent deficit hawk who led the effort to eliminate the...

...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...

Avoid Ethanol When Possible Gasoline that has been cut with 10 or 15 percent ethanol, called E10 or E15, is an mpg killer. Why? Gasoline stores more energy than ethanol (119,000 Btu per gallon vs 80,000). So it takes more ethanol than gasoline to go the same distance.