“Congress already made sure corn ethanol was protected from any scientific assessment of its impact on the environment when it passed the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. Buried in the law are provisions that exempt every gallon of corn ethanol from the requirement to reduce greenhouse gases that all other biofuels have to meet to qualify as a ‘renewable fuel.'” So reporteth Minnesota’s Startribune.com, while ripping hometown pol House Agriculture Committee Chairman, Collin Peterson, a new you-know-what. The paper’s plenty pissed at Petersen’s threat to torpedo Obama’s climate change legislation—unless the EPA gives ethanol a “get out of jail free” card for its tendency to increase global warming. Careful readers will now note the quote that initiated this blog and notice that Petersen’s asking for a free pass that the industry already enjoys. Never mind. Hell hath no fury like a legislator protecting his sponsors.
What has Peterson and the corn-ethanol lobby so upset is that the EPA took into consideration “indirect land use change” — technical jargon for factoring in the climate-damaging gases that will be released when forests or grasslands are plowed under and planted with crops to make up for the corn used to make ethanol. When EPA scientists factor in indirect land use change, as they are required to do by law, it turns out corn ethanol likely increases rather than decreases greenhouse-gas emissions.
Is there no end to this self-righteous perfidy? In a word, no.
to find out more about this indirect greenhouse gas impact, you can read my article on the carbon impact of biofuels:
http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2008/116-6/focus-abs.html
It all seems quite simple to me:
1) There is a world market for oil out there. Stop all the xenophobia about energy independence; this is a senseless and expensive hobby.
2) Corn ethanol is just agricultural subsidies, nothing else – it’s simply a tax. Stop this.
3) Stop the CAFE nonsense. If you want to limit emissions, tax gas. CO2 production depends on gas burned, and nothing else.
We could start ballot initiatives in the states to impose a 500% tax on E85.
All this and oil’s probably going to go back up to $60+ per barrel, gas is over $2.50, and corn is going for about 40% less than this time a year ago. Corn juice is making a comeback. Learn to love it people.
Gotta love my hometown newspaper. Some of us up here call it the “Star & Sickle” rather than the “Star & Tribune.” Then again, I can only imagine they’ll need them some TARP-lovin’ too…
This is just more of the same from them.
There are no shortage of opportunities to use the great George Carlin’s quote “This country was bought and sold and paid for a long time ago.”
…. or the one that goes with it;
“I believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent people, and they get into office and screw everything up, well you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem. You voted them in. You have no right to complain.”
David Holzman thank you for your excellent piece.
So if you don’t vote, you can’t complain.
And if you do vote, you can’t complain.
Doesn’t matter- they don’t listen anyway.
They have the game rigged – just watch and see.
This country hasn’t been FREE for decades.
We vote ’em in, but from then on, they’re battered, cajoled and bribed by (sometimes competing) corporate interests and lobbyists.
We vote ’em in, but lose them on their first day in office.
Carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol consumption are considered to be zero because the carbon in the fuel is derived primarily from corn, and it is assumed that an equivalent amount of carbon will be sequestered during the corn growing season.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/archive/gg04rpt/carbon.html
A geographical correction: Peterson is NOT a hometown congressman. The twin cities metro area including Minneapolis is an urban area in the southeast part of the state. It has about 60% to 2/3rds of Minnesota’s population (depending on how the ex-suburban areas are defined). Peterson’s district is one of the most rural districts in the entire nation and it is the northwest part of the state along the North Dakota border all the way to the Canadian border. Most of this district is a 3 to 5 hour drive from Minneapolis. I point this out because there is clearly a divide between a liberal urban newspaper and a rural congressman.
Ethanol is a boondoogle BUT in the rural parts of Minnesota it has become an extremely important part of the economy.
Twin Cities, Minnesota
A boondoggle is still a boondoggle. Welfare is still welfare and there is no such thing as a free lunch unless you are a member of the UAW who gets paid 95% of pay to not work or a farmer who receives taxpayers monies to raise crops or not.
Meanwhile, countries like China who understand basic economic concepts such as one has to produce and produce profitably in order to consume continue to rake in the bucks and live the “Golden Rule” of he or she who has the gold makes the rules.