If people were REALLY concerned about the environment, they would want the EPA to relax the rules a bit (like yes, it is okay to drill or mine within 2 miles of a spotted owl’s nest, or your waste water does not need to be cleaner than the naturally mineralized river you are putting it into). This would promote more mining, manufacturing, drilling, etc. here in the U.S. where we have some pretty good rules. And less of it would go to China, Indonesia, etc. where the rules (if any) are really poor.
I used to work in NJ on hazardous waste sites years ago. I recall one EPA mandate was for something like 0.5 parts/million of some substance. Trouble was the labs could only measure to something like 1 ppm!
The EPA is like Unions. The EPA had its day in the seventies cleaning up the rivers, etc. so they would support fisheries, etc.; and the unions helped stop 8 year olds from working 18-hour days. But now they just go too far on everything.
BTW - it is a real struggle to even grow grass on my yard. (All the fir tree needles make it too acidic).
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_energy/ew3/corn-ethanol-and-water-quality.pdf
A good article on the effects of going “green” by using ethanol.
Corn requires WAY MORE water and fertilizer than other crops. Fertilizer that ends up as unwanted nutrients in the rivers, lakes, and ocean. All sorts of other problems with ethanol of course.