Ethanol Mandate Target Of Repeal Effort

The oil industry, environmentalists, taxpayer groups, livestock growers, and foreign aid groups have asked Congress to repeal the mandate requiring a 15 percent blend of ethanol in gasoline, after a federal court upheld the rule in early February. More than forty percent of the U.S. corn crop is presumed to go to ethanol, combining with a continuing Midwest drought to drive up corn prices. In a conference call on February 4, refiners said the fuel has adverse effects on everything from car engines to outboard motors to chain saws.

Scott Faber, a lobbyist for the Environmental Working Group, said ethanol has destroyed more wetlands and grasslands in the last four years than were wrecked in the last 40 years, and added that it is "worse than the Canadian tar sands" for contributing to greenhouse gases.

By driving up prices, the ethanol mandate induces farmers to plow marginal virgin land, releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere, while the fertilizer and pesticides used to grow the corn washes into rivers.

Jeff Lautt, Chief Executive of POET, a South Dakota company that is one of the nation's largest ethanol producers, said ethanol "is the most successful renewable fuel in history."

California Democrat Dianne Feinstein teamed with Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn in a successful Senate vote to kill off ethanol subsidies a year and a half ago. But that effort left major federal assistance in the mandated blending of ethanol into gasoline, which the Obama Environmental Protection Agency increased from 10 to 15 percent.

In addition, the EPA mandates that some of the ethanol come from agricultural wastes, so-called cellulosic ethanol. Former President George W. Bush predicted in 2006 that cellulosic ethanol would be competitive by last year. It is still not commercially viable, even though some Silicon Valley investors hold out hope.

Charlie Drevna of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers group said refiners are forced to pay fines for not using a product that doesn't exist, and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals agreed last week, even as the court upheld the 15 percent blend mandate.

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