Wednesday, I caught a few minutes from Mark Belling's last half hour on the radio. He read this Wall Street Journal piece, The Biofuels Backlash. It is yet another condemnation of the whole biofuel fiasco--the food crisis, pollution, excessive water use, price supports, etc. You know, the usual complaints... (Let them eat and drink ethanol).

The WSJ piece opened stating that for the past "30 years we...opposed ethanol subsidies. So imagine our great, pleasant surprise to see that the world is suddenly awakening to the folly of subsidized biofuels."

Belling also mentioned that McCain and other senators were asking the EPA to waive some of their standards that have been pushing biofuels. That brightened my spirits, since McCain has been chanting the ethanol mantra like most of the other politicians. I found the article, Senators call for EPA to reconsider ethanol output mandate. Here are a few highlights:

Twenty-four Republican senators, including presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona, sent a letter Friday to the Environmental Protection Agency suggesting it waive, or restructure, rules that require a fivefold increase in ethanol production over the next 15 years.

Congress passed a law last year mandating a ramp-up to 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol by 2015 and 36 billion by 2022. But McCain and other Republicans said those rules should be suspended to put more corn back into the food supply for animal feed, and to encourage farmers to plant other crops.

"This subsidized (ethanol) program _ paid for by taxpayer dollars _ has contributed to pain at the cash register, at the dining room table, and a devastating food crisis throughout the world," said McCain, in a statement.

...Analysts say lawmakers are unlikely to roll back popular ethanol subsidies during an election year.

Congress will not "turn on the corn belt" because of the significant number of votes held by ethanol-producing states, Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. analyst Kevin Book argued in a recent note to clients. Ethanol subsidies could face greater risks, however, in 2009 and going forward, according to Book.

The good news is political winds are changing a bit and promoting biofuel is no longer the slam-dunk it once was. Congressman Sensenbrenner just introduced his legislation, HR 5911, Remove Incentives to Produce Ethanol Act of 2008 against ethanol mandates. Wouldn't it be great to see some actual repeals? I hope people are contacting their senators and speaking out against S 2191, the Lieberman/Warner America's Climate Security Act of 2007.

The bad news is that, "Spokesman Jonathan Shradar said the Bush administration remains committed to ethanol as an alternative fuel because of its potential to 'get our nation off its addiction to foreign oil.' " (Good reason to start producing more domestic oil!)

Mark Belling expressed something to the effect that he wished Republicans* in our State Assembly would draft some sort of bill to state that Wisconsin wanted out of the ethanol mandates. It would have no teeth, but it would send a message.

It will be interesting to see how the presidential candidates adjust their positions on ethanol in the next 6 months. Do I dare hope the tide is turning?

*Maybe I should say Representatives who are anti ethanol since so many on both sides of the isle have sold their souls to King Corn. Since there are so many more food and fuel consumers than corn growers/ethanol processing plant owners, if the public would just bother to contact their representatives in all levels of government, maybe we could turn this around!

Links: Don't forget, Free Pass To Movie Preview of "The Enemy God" Saturday at 3pm

Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake" is quoted a lot these days in regard to ethanol and rising food prices. There are many interpretations as to what she meant by it--some debate whether she said it at all.

The most interesting explanation I ever heard came from a UWM theater department teacher. She said that "cake" was the term for a gasket made from dough strips used to seal oven doors. When the baking was finished, the very over-baked, virtually inedible dough gaskets were scraped off and discarded. The poor would dig these out of the garbage and attempt to eat them. In other words, the bakers used food for a purpose other than human or animal consumption, and the insensitive Marie said the starving could always eat the gaskets.

I think that explanation fits in rather well with today's food for fuel fiasco. But I am adding to the travesty of diverting food into ethanol production, the misuse and abuse of water used for producing biofuel. Hence my version of Marie's statement, Let them eat and drink ethanol!

People are waking up to the fact that ethanol is not the answer to energy independence. Even Former President Clinton, at a campaign stop for his wife in Pennsylvania, said, "Corn is the single most inefficient way to produce ethanol because it uses a lot of energy and because it drives up the price of food."

Some people are aware that food-to-fuel mandates have increased demand on water resources. Corn in particular requires irrigation in most areas. We noted this on our last few trips out west--hundreds of acres of corn fields all being irrigated. Water is becoming a rare resource in some areas. (If you live west of the sub-continental divide on Sunnyslope Road, you have probably been paying attention to water rights issues.)

But what most people don't realize is that ethanol production causes water pollution too--both in the growing of corn and in the production of ethanol itself--regardless of the plant source. 

Corn is a nitrogen needy plant and is very soil depleting. (Remember how the Native Americans taught the Pilgrims to put a fish in each hill of corn?) Well today's farmers rely heavily on nitrogen rich fertilizers. The Washington Post stated, "Increased agricultural production also means increased fertilizer use. The National Academy of Sciences reported last month that meeting the congressional food-to-fuel mandate by 2022 would lead to a 10 to 19 percent increase in the size of the Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone" -- an area so polluted by fertilizer runoff that no aquatic life can survive there."

Polluting farmland runoff is not the worst of it. Ethanol factories also exude an alarming amount of polluted water. I have heard it described as a glycerin type effluent that causes fish die off.

Water Use and Pollution Syrup, batches of bad ethanol, and sewage are dumped into streams, threatening fish and plants with chloride, copper and other wastes which deprive waters of oxygen when they decompose. A state inspector in Iowa reported that a creek next to the ethanol plant in Sioux Center was milky and smelled like sewage.

Water Supply Can't Meet Thirst For New Industry ...Nowhere is the growing clash between economic development and water conservation more evident than in the push to build ethanol plants that typically guzzle 3½ to 6 gallons of water for every gallon of fuel produced. Minnesota's 15 ethanol plants together consume about 2 billion gallons of water per year.

Drunk on Ethanol MTBE pollutes ground and surface water, but so does ethanol. With each gallon of ethanol you get 12 gallons of sewagelike effluent produced by the fermentation/distillation process.

So, let's see... biofuel production causes local and world wide food prices to rise, food shortages, water shortages due to irrigation, pollution from fertilizer runoff, and pollution to waterways from ethanol production. (Don't forget air pollution from burning ethanol.)

And most politicians are still chanting the ethanol mantra in order to save the planet from supposed CO2 pollution? (Explanation: The corn grower / ethanol lobby is very influential.) 

Let's hope these increasingly anti-ethanol articles and news stories about world food shortages and pollution will embarrass our Federal and State legislators into voting against or better yet repealing global warming and ethanol mandates. Otherwise, I am afraid we won't have much choice but to eat and drink ethanol! 

Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket

Ethanol's Failed Promise

Let Them Eat Cake

Hunger fuels food riots in Haiti 

Go, Jim and Jeff, Go! Repeal Those Ethanol Mandates (links to legislators included)

Links: Don't forget, Free Pass To Movie Preview of "The Enemy God" Saturday at 3pm

Just heard this on Mark Belling, Sensenbrenner co-sponsored a bill to end ethanol mandates: 

"Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Menomonee Falls) is a cosponsor of HR 5911, the Remove Incentives to Produce Ethanol Act of 2008 (RIPE Act), introduced this week by Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona.  This bill will repeal the legislative provisions responsible for the artificial demand for ethanol by:

• Repealing the renewable fuel standard;
• Repealing tax credits for ethanol producers;
• Repealing tariffs on importing ethanol.

“...The fact is, the ethanol industry has been subsidized for twenty-seven years [51 cents/gallon] and claims to still need the subsidies to survive,” Sensenbrenner added.  “If an industry cannot survive without government support after twenty-seven years, there are more serious problems in place.”

Mark Belling did not give the bill much chance to pass because of the powerful ethanol lobby, but hope always springs eternal in my heart. After all, Belling isn't omniscient; he did not think Gableman had a chance against Butler for State Supreme Court either.

Almost every day we are seeing newscasts and articles on how biofuel has caused food shortages and food prices to rise. If the American public puts enough heat on their congressmen, who knows?

Contact Congressman Sensenbrenner, Telephone: (262) 784-1111, (202) 225-5101  

Links:
Update: "Creepy" picture Billy Ray cannot deny

Upcoming events in Brookfield

4th Annual Weed Out, May 3rd, Mary Knoll Park

"From: Paul Olsen
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 7:43 AM

Subject: State Sen. Olsen drops role in pushing

alternative fuel mandate

Renewable fuels...
creates jobs $$$$
clean environment $$$$$
supports local economy $$$$$$$
keeps our dollars home $$$$$$$$$$$
its the future $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
a flip flop senator who doesn't defend reality

WORTHLESS !!!"

Now for the conflict of interest issue.

We know that Senate Bill 380 sponsor Senator Olsen removed his name from the bill and will abstain from voting for it due to a perceived conflict of interest. That article from the Oshkosh Northwestern paper stated: (Emphasis added)

Olsen came under fire shortly after the bill was introduced in early January because he has family ties to the ethanol industry and is a part owner of a grain mill that sells corn for ethanol production. Olsen was a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 380, which would require vehicle fuel distributors to make renewable fuels 25 percent of their total sales volume by 2025.

On Wednesday, Wisconsin Government Accountability Board Director Kevin Kennedy indicating Olsen's support of the bill would not violate conflict of interest statutes even though Olsen has a one-third ownership stake in Olsen's Mill, a family business that sells corn to Olsen's brother's ethanol plant, Utica Energy LLC...

...The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board's Standards of Conduct for elected officials generally requires legislators to step away from discussions, votes or support for legislation that will have a benefit for the legislator, a member of the official's immediate family or any organizations with which the legislator is associated...

...Kennedy's decision indicates "immediate family" applies to a spouse or children, but not to brothers or sisters. He said the actual impact of the legislation on Olsen's Mill, in which Luther Olsen has a financial interest, would be "unspecific and speculative."

"Thus, based the facts you have provided, in my view you may participate in the sponsorship, consideration and vote on legislative proposals that increase incentives for manufacturing and using ethanol and renewable fuels without violating laws administered by the Government Accountability Board," Kennedy's letter reads.

So, according to the Government Accountability Board, there was no real conflict of interest.

But here is another tidbit from Jay Webber that I was unaware of. (My alarm is set to WISN so I catch a bit of his radio show each morning.) According to Jay this morning, ethanol producers cannot purchase corn from just anyone--it is not like just any Farmer John Doe can take his load of corn to Senator Luther Olsen's brother's Utica Energy LLC ethanol factory. No, Jay said it had to come from a licensed grain mill, such as Olsen Mill, the one Senator Luther Olsen is a co-owner of!  To me, that really crowds that perceived conflict of interest line.

Jay also told about a very interesting email Charlie Sykes spoke about on his radio show. It was from Senator Luther Olsen's Chief of Staff Heather Smith. It evidently is a response to an email sent by Luther's brother Paul. Pretty interesting stuff. The complete email is at the bottom of the Charlie Sykes link. Here are just a few excerpts:

Why? [does Luther have a target on his back over this issue] Because of you [brother Paul]. They know that you are the c h i n k in Luther's armor. It doesn't matter what any ethics board says about if it's ok or not. Anyone who is not completely retarded running a political campaign knows how to make a perceived ethical problem look just as bad as a real one.

So, in other words, she does not think there is any real conflict of interest! 

I also found it interesting that Ms. Smith noted there was not one call from a constituent in favor of ethanol--after all, their calls would be from Luther Olsen's district, presumably a more favorable district toward ethanol considering the potential for new jobs.

There were not a hundred calls, or ten, or EVEN ONE CALL from a constituent who wanted to tell Luther, "Heck yeah, vote for this, it's great!" We got a memo from a "special interest group" and the DNR, and heaven knows the DNR should always be listened to.

 

Is it any wonder we need to watch all of our politicians regardless of their party? 

Let Governor Doyle know if you agree with his assessment of ethanol in Wisconsin. 

608-266-1212, 414-227-4344

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