Posted on 03/14/2015 9:47:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
Talk about the Norfolk terrier tail wagging the Great Dane. If they are to have any hope of winning their party’s nomination, Republican presidential hopefuls better support ethanol mandates, Hawkeye State politicos told potential candidates at the recent Iowa Agricultural Summit in Des Moines.
“Don’t mess with the RFS,” Republican Governor Terry Branstad warned, referring to Renewable Fuel Standards that require refiners to blend increasing amounts of ethanol into gasoline. “It is the Holy Grail, and I will defend it,” said Rep. Steve King, another Iowa Republican. It is vital for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and preventing dangerous climate change and weather extremes, said others.
Corn ethanol is big in Iowa, the March 7-8 Ag Summit kicked off the state’s 2016 election debates, big-time GOP donor Bruce Rastetter made his fortune from ethanol and hosted the event, and the first presidential primary will be held in Iowa. Moreover, Gov. Branstad’s son Eric directs the multi-million-dollar America’s Renewable Future campaign, which co-sponsored the summit and hopes to convince increasingly skeptical voters that the federal government must retain the RFS or even expand it.
Failure to back the RFS means sayonara to any White House hopes, candidates were told. Appropriately chastened, many normally free market proponents dutifully took to the podium to endorse the mandates.
Some cited national security as a justification. The RFS reduces demand for foreign oil, Jeb Bush asserted. Biofuels are a way for America to “fuel itself,” said Mike Huckabee. “Every gallon of ethanol … is one less gallon you have to buy from people who hate your guts,” Lindsay Graham added.
Others focused on allegedly unfair competition. Rick Santorum said the RFS helps ensure that other competitive products besides oil and natural gas “are allowed into [the energy] stream.” Scott Walker recanted his previous opposition and said someday the ethanol industry won’t need these mandates, but right now it “needs government assistance,” because “we don’t have a free and open marketplace.”
Bush and Santorum added that ethanol boosts corn-state economies and creates jobs “in small town and rural America.” Chris Christie said the RFS is “what the law requires” and we need to comply with it. Rick Perry seemed to say it’s time to end federal mandates – and let states pick winners and losers.
That’s fine. But now that they have bowed to the biofuel gods, kowtowed to the small cadre of Iowa corn growers, sought the blessings of crony capitalist campaign contributors, and repeated the standard deviations from facts about green energy, climate change and national security, perhaps they will pay closer attention to other candidates, and to what’s actually happening in the energy and climate arenas.
Presidential hopefuls Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul remained firm in their belief that the RFS should be phased out now. Cruz has joined Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and others in sponsoring bills to abolish the corn ethanol RFS over five years.
If refiners and gas stations really are working with big oil to cut off access, Cruz suggested, “there are remedies in the federal antitrust laws to deal with that.” Otherwise “the right answer” is to let biofuels keep innovating and producing on their own, “and not have Washington dictating what is happening.”
Biofuel’s problem is not lack of access or unfair competition. It’s that the world has changed since ethanol subsidies and mandates were enacted in 2005. Back then, people more plausibly believed we were running out of petroleum, and global warming might become a serious problem.
But then hydraulic fracturing happened. The United States is now the world’s #1 producer of oil and natural gas – and the U.S. is importing one-third of its needs, instead of two-thirds. Gasoline prices have plunged, making ethanol much less cost-competitive.
Motorists are buying less gasoline than the 2005 and 2007 ethanol mandates envisioned, so refiners don’t need even 14 billion gallons of corn ethanol a year, much less the 15 billion statutory cap. They’ve hit a “blend wall,” and are being forced to buy far more ethanol than they can blend into E10 gasoline. They certainly don’t need an extra 21 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol by 2022 – and innovators still haven’t figured out how to make that “advanced biofuel” at a profit.
Using tax dollars to prop up new subsidies, and imposing 15% ethanol gasoline mandates, would be a ridiculous response. The last thing we need is more citizen cash for crony capitalist cellulosic capers.
As to climate fears, no Category 3-5 hurricane has hit the United States since late 2005, the longest such period in more than a century, and perhaps since the Civil War. Tornado activity is also down. Arctic ice has returned to normal and Antarctic ice is at record levels. Sea levels are rising at barely six inches per century. The global frequency and duration of droughts, rainfall and snowfall is within historic norms.
Where is the crisis? The fossil fuel link? If human carbon dioxide emissions drive climate change, did steadily rising atmospheric CO2 levels cause all these blessings and normalcy, and average global temperatures to hold steady for 18 years? The far more likely answer is that the sun and other natural forces still dominate climate and weather systems, as they have throughout Earth and human history – and as actual, real-world temperature, climate, weather, solar and other observations strongly suggest.
IPCC, EPA, NASA, Obama, Penn State, East Anglia University and other climate models and alarms are completely at odds with what is happening on Planet Earth. No wonder alarmists are now so desperate that they blame every weather event on fossil fuels, and viciously attack scientists who point to reality … and threaten their Climate Crisis, Inc. money machine and regulatory power grab.
On top of all the corporate and scientist welfare, rip-offs and McCarthyite tactics, the manmade climate cataclysm mantra has also created a steady stream of corruption and scandal. Former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber was forced to resign, after he and his fiancé Cylvia Hayes profited (and failed to report $118,000 in income) from “green energy” schemes. Current Oregon Global Warming Commission chairman Angus Duncan is also president of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, which makes millions from regional and national sales of renewable energy and “Green Tag” carbon offsets; he also helped write the state’s climate change strategy and cap-and-trade system!
Tens of billions of dollars in wheeling, dealing, nepotism and corporate-environmentalist-political cronyism is intolerable. The Branstad governor-son arrangement raises sniff tests of its own.
Then there are the practical problems. A few corn and soybean farmers get rich. But meat and poultry producers pay far more for feed, and family food bills keep rising. Perhaps worse, says the World Bank, turning half of the U.S. corn crop into fuel creates aid and food shortages in poor nations. More people stay hungry longer, and more die of malnutrition and starvation. The UN Food and Agriculture Association says this has caused food riots and calls it an environmental “crime against humanity.”
Ethanol-blends get fewer miles per tank than pure gasoline. They collect water, corrode engine parts, and cause serious maintenance and repair problems for lawn mowers, chain saws, snowmobiles, emergency generators and other small engines. Classic car enthusiast and former Late Night host Jay Leno says ethanol “eats through fuel pump diaphragms, old rubber fuel lines or pot metal parts, then leaks out on hot engines … and ka-bloooooie!” The older cars catch fire – far more often than before E10 was required.
A new Oregon State University study says biofuels barely reduce fossil fuel use and are likely to increase greenhouse gas emissions. And US Department of Energy and other studies demonstrate that producing biofuels requires unsustainable amounts of land, water, fertilizers, pesticides and fossil fuels.
Not surprisingly, even many likely Iowa voters are now skeptical of federal ethanol mandates. Nearly half of them no longer support the RFS even if it helps some Iowa farmers. Republican presidential candidates who surrendered to a gaggle of Iowa corn growers and renewable fuel interests need to reflect long and hard on these ethanol and corruption realities, and the broader national interest.
This is why government spending will never decrease until impending doom forces it upon us. Everybody wants the other guy to give up his place at the trough. Nobody wants to give up his own.
Politicians have made all of us dependents - social security and medicare, student loans, putting military bases or businesses dependent on government in small towns, highway funding, medicaid, welfare, etc. All of us depend on something that was paid for by us and our fellow taxpayers.
Already the pressure is on in the states that refused to set up exchanges for Obamacare. I’ve read sob stories in our local paper about people who finally have health care and will lose it if the Supreme Court rules against the subsidies. Mark my words, the governors of these states will cave.
...the world has changed since ethanol subsidies and mandates were enacted in 2005. Back then, people more plausibly believed we were running out of petroleum, and global warming might become a serious problem. But then hydraulic fracturing happened. The United States is now the world's #1 producer of oil and natural gas -- and the U.S. is importing one-third of its needs, instead of two-thirds. Gasoline prices have plunged, making ethanol much less cost-competitive.The plunge in fuel prices will make ethanol less expensive to produce, and that will mean more corn, more ethanol, more corn-fed beef, and for that and other reasons, lower food prices.
More proof the 17th amendment needs to be repealed
The plunge in fuel prices shows ethanol is less necessary, for fuel.
End the mandate and end the CAFE standards while we're at it.
The plunge in fuel prices will bring down the cost of producing ethanol, and the market for it will increase, as a consequence of people driving more miles or driving vehicles with less fuel efficiency.
Getting rid of CAFE? For what reason? It has never been an impediment to manufacturing or buying gas guzzlers. There’s been a bit of a recent stampede around Grand Rapids, maybe elsewhere, to buy gas guzzlers. It’s similar to what went on in the Clinton years, when big SUVs and Hummers were fairly common. When the price rises into the $3 and $4 range (in a year, or two, or five) they’ll be back up on blocks.
Lets see, why not do something smart? Hemp for paper, wood building products, oil, diesel, plastics and food for people and live stock. No-No-No lets not be smart and go to Hell in a hand basket with oil and corn.
Why do we need to produce ethanol?
Getting rid of CAFE? For what reason?
I think we should get rid of harmful regulations that distort markets.
For some reason we can purchase ethanol free premium at several stations here in the Twilight Zone...get more MPGs than the extra cost!
you have an odd distorted view of the market......
The alternatives are wrong, so, no.
But the harmless regulations should stay put, right?
Ethanol emerged as the oxygenating alternative to Methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE), a petrochemical industry favorite that was showing up everywhere in ground water. Oxygenating agents in gasoline help gasoline combustion and contribute a bit to fuel economy, and help us not breathe unburned gasoline.
And it adds to smog, increases food costs and distorts markets. And the ethanol can damage your engine.
Other than that, I'm sure it's great. So great it should be optional.
Allow me to rephrase: you’re an economic idiot.
Let me rephrase; you not only don’t know what you’re talking about, no one else does either, because all you’ve engaged in is invective.
The reason ethanol’s price has been high is that hydrocarbon fuels are by and large used in the cultivation of corn. The drop in hydrocarbon fuel prices will mean a lower production cost and therefore more corn production, and that will mean a lower price of the ethanol additive to motor fuel, meaning a further slight decline in the price of that.
Lower motor fuel prices have nearly always resulted in more use of those fuels, even if that increase is not immediate. Conservation due to improved fuel economy — and the increase in fuel economy came due to gubmint mandates along with the market — has resulted in lighter vehicles, but more vehicles as the US population has grown to about 150 percent of its OPEC embargo era value, and smaller average households, as well as households with two working adults rather than one.
Improving fuel economy would in and of itself clean up the air, obviously, because less fuel is needed for the same number of vehicle miles. Other mandates cleaned it up further.
Burning ethanol doesn’t distort food costs.
Burning ethanol isn’t “burning food”.
The anti-ethanol campaign is and always has been carried out by the petrochemical industry, but now they’re getting lots of hot and eager help from the greeniacs. Which are you?
That is the most convoluted and absurd math equation I've ever had the displeasure of spending time with. I mean really, you're just ridiculous. That's just too stupid for words.
Now you're just babbling incoherently. You are way out to lunch. It's the greeniacs who LOVE ethanol. What frigging planet are you on? Oh wait, you work for Archer Daniels Midland apparently...clearly you are in the "industry" - otherwise you wouldn't call big oil "the petrochemical industry." YOU dude, has been OUTED.
No, you are babbling incoherently, but that’s not a change. You ‘dude’, have self-identified as someone who can’t hold up your end of an online debate, but that was obvious from your very first response.
There is a petrochemical industry, that’s what it calls itself, and that’s what everyone else calls it. Loved your idiotic outburst about ADM. Next time try to work in a rant about GMO. Regardless, keep up your string of moronic accusations and insults.
Obviously you haven’t been paying attention about the greeniacs and ethanol. When GWB was president and was pro-ethanol (Pat Buchanan was also strongly in favor of it) the left turned against it. It was probably inevitable anyway, since it’s a way of punishing the “flyover states” which tend to go red, and fits the greens’ luddite agenda.
[note] Pat Buchanan on Environment: Nov 18, 1999
Supports ethanol subsidies for energy independence
Pat Buchanan has stated his “support [for] ethanol production as integral to a policy of national energy independence” and cited an Iowa ethanol production facility he recently visited as “an example of American efficiency.”
Source: Sustainable Energy Coalition, media backgrounder #2
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