Ethanol can't be sent in an energy-efficient way through pipelines like gasoline can, because it would be contaminated by moisture along the way.  It must be shipped instead by trucks, barges and railroads.  In addition, all that extra corn farming means more fertilizer and pesticide use, along with increased irrigation.  More diesel fuel will be needed to run the tractors and the harvesters.*

Did the world's largest car company just make the world's biggest blunder?  Ethanol is hailed as an environmentally friendly fuel because it supposedly generates less carbon during combustion.  Ask any mechanic which fuel provides more engine power: ethanol or gasoline.  And let's not forget the inconvenient truth: producing ethanol requires massive amounts of water, land, and energy.  Some experts argue that when you factor in the entire production process, ethanol may actually consume more natural resources than petroleum.  But who cares about the details when we're saving the planet?

Biden Admin Reportedly Set To Greenlight Rule Change That Could Spike Gas Prices — But Not Until After The Election.  The Biden administration is expected to ease seasonal restrictions on ethanol-gasoline blends but has delayed the change until after the 2024 election to avoid a price spike, according to Reuters.  The rule change stems from a 2022 request from the governors of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin to allow the sale of gasoline with 15% ethanol year-round, known as E15 gasoline, lifting current seasonal restrictions that aim to reduce smog in the summer months, according to Reuters.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had originally set an effective date of April 28, 2024, for the changes when the agency sent the proposal to the White House in December, but that is now expected to be pushed back to 2025.  Top oil refiners, including HF Sinclair Corp. and Philips 66, have warned against the change, saying that it would complicate fuel supply logistics and increase the risk of area shortages, possibly raising prices, according to Reuters.  The ethanol industry has lobbied for the changes, saying that the environmental concerns are exaggerated.

It's Time For Our Government To Divorce Itself From Its Bad Laws.  Ethanol is an industry that enjoys no natural market.  The only reason the ethanol market exists is because of government mandates.  And who are the beneficiaries of this corporate welfare funded out of your pocket?  You?  Of course not.  No, it's mainly members of the farm/finance/producers cabal in the form of the Renewable Fuels Association.  This ethanol boondoggle translated into a $41 billion industry in 2021 and is expected to grow to $124 billion by 2030, money that comes out of your pocket and could be spent elsewhere if it were not, literally, being set on fire.  The worst part of the entire ethanol fiasco is the fact that not only does it not achieve any of its stated — and oft-changing — objectives but that it actually causes a wide array of unintended consequences, none of which are good.  Number one is the fact that it drives up the cost of one of the most important foodstuffs in the world, corn, the price for which has more than doubled over the last 20 years.  The unnecessary expense of ethanol also drives up the price of virtually every other thing in the economy, from food to transportation to plastics.

The UK has switched to E10 petrol.  Here's what it is and what it means.  The US of A is quite fond of blending ethanol with its petrol, supplementing the fossil-based fuel with some farm-fresh booze in order to reduce its dependence on foreign oil.  But that's America, where farm subsidies prop up corn production to the point that they use it as a sweetener instead of sugar.  And for making each drop of petrol go further — handy when you're driving a Yank-spec behemoth.  The other argument is to reduce carbon emissions.  The idea is that ethanol has less carbon than petrol — just two carbon atoms per molecule to petrol's average of eight — so burning it will release less carbon dioxide.

Mercola: The Stupidity of Ethanol as "Green" Energy.  Carbon neutrality is the holy grail of the biofuel industry.  It refers to a product that has net zero carbon emissions.  In the case of ethanol, the corn or soybeans grown to produce it would have to remove as much carbon dioxide from the environment as is given off when the ethanol is burned.  The manufacture and use of ethanol in the U.S. has been allowed to expand based on the assumption that it's carbon neutral and therefore far better for the environment than gasoline.  However, a 2016 study1 by professor John DeCicco, Ph.D., at the University of Michigan, showed that such assumptions were categorically false.

Big Ethanol vs.  Electric Vehicles.  One of the more entertaining spectacles in Washington these days is the industrial-policy competition between the climate and ethanol lobbies.  The Biden Administration this week handed both sides a victory, yet as usual neither is satisfied.  The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday finalized its long-awaited renewable fuel standards for 2023 to 2025.  The standards dictate how much ethanol and other so-called biofuels must be blended into the nation's fuel supply.  Refiners have to buy credits if they don't meet quotas, which raises the price of gasoline.  Corn farmers, ethanol producers and Iowa politicians are irate becausethe EPA didn't increase the mandated volume for conventional renewable fuels. "The rule is totally inconsistent with this administration's climate agenda because everybody knows that both biodiesel and ethanol is environmentally positive," Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said.

The Nanny State Stains a Deck.  When candidates run for public office — local, state, or federal — they campaign on some careful blend of their résumés, their personalities, and their political issues. [...] Candidates don't run on these regulatory issues, and voters certainly never vote for candidates on the expectation that they will do such things to them if elected.  But it happens every day.  For decades, the federal government has mandated that automotive gasoline include a percentage of corn ethanol, which is destructive to our vehicles' engines, causes an increase in the price refiners must charge for their blends, and unnecessarily burns up a necessary food source, raising the prices of staples (such as cornmeal) on the global market, contributing to the starvation of millions.  This regulation benefits nobody but a few lobbyists and bureaucrats and maybe a couple of politicians.

The Nanny State Stains a Deck.  When candidates run for public office — local, state, or federal — they campaign on some careful blend of their résumés, their personalities, and their political issues. [...] Candidates don't run on these regulatory issues, and voters certainly never vote for candidates on the expectation that they will do such things to them if elected.  But it happens every day.

Ethanol Subsidies Could Trip Up Debt Ceiling Negotiations.  What could possibly be more important than avoiding the federal government's first-ever debt default?  For some Midwestern Republicans, the answer might be ethanol subsidies.  "A bloc of at least eight corn belt Republicans are a hard 'no' on" House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) bill to raise the debt ceiling unless proposed cuts to ethanol tax credits are removed from the package, Axios reported Tuesday.  That group reportedly includes all four members of Congress who represent Iowa and at least four other Republican lawmakers from other "corn belt" states.  Because Republicans have a slim 222 [to] 213 majority in the House, any group of five lawmakers can hold considerable leverage by threatening to vote against a bill.  That's the same dynamic that allowed a small breakaway faction of Republicans to hold up McCarthy's election as speaker in January — but now there are stakes that actually matter, as the Treasury is tipping dangerously close to a possible default if the debt limit is not raised in the coming weeks.

Carbon Capture Is a Woke Fantasy.  Private industry is currently developing new processes/technologies to capture and sequester CO2 from ethanol fermentation plants.  Plans are underway for Colorado and Nebraska to pioneer this process, and to start burying CO2 from ethanol in 2024.  Ethanol production is a big business, consuming more than 40% (!) of the U.S. corn crop.  Last summer, to help lower gas prices, Biden increased the amount of ethanol that must be added to gasoline from 10% to 15%.  Ethanol's chemical composition is C3H5OH — almost a hydrocarbon itself, but for that outlying oxygen molecule.  Ethanol is corrosive to car engines, and its production results in a net loss of energy: "Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol ... [which] has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU."  The largest players in the CCUS business by far are the Darth Vaders of climate change:  oil companies.  For decades, oil and gas producers have injected exhaust, like CO2, and water from well sites back into the wells to pressurize the rocks and stimulate production.  Today, however, carbon capture is being embraced by oil companies on a massive scale.

The Democrat War on Fossil Fuels.  The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) makes the business of refining oil difficult.  The law provides broad powers to the EPA.  It "directs the EPA Administrator to revise regulations to ensure that domestic transportation fuel sold or introduced into commerce, on an annual average basis, contains a specified volume of renewable fuel."  The George W. Bush Administration and a bipartisan majority in Congress enacted the EISA providing authority to the EPA to dictate terms for the blending of renewable fuels in refineries.  In 2021, 13.9 billion gallons of ethanol were blended into gasoline.  Unfortunately for refiners, they were mandated by the EPA to blend 20.17 billion gallons.  Since there was a shortfall in EPA mandated ethanol consumption in 2021, refiners had to purchase Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) credits to make up the difference.  Each gallon of ethanol produced as a biofuel for blending comes with a D6 RIN.  Each refiner/blender has a quota imposed by the EPA based on its annual mandate and the production capacity of the refinery.  If the refinery blends more than its quota, the surplus RINS may be sold as credits on the market.  If the refinery blends less than its quota, it must purchase RINS to make up the difference.  If no RIN credits are available on the market, they may be bought from ethanol producers.  In 2021 refiners had to purchase RIN credits for 6.27 billion gallons of ethanol and other biofuels they did not consume.

Biden's gas scam.  Just a couple of days ago on Larry Kudlow I again read "gas prices are down."  Even the leading minds in the economy have bought into this.  But in reality, gasoline prices are not down.  The whole gasoline affair is a successful con that the Biden administration has so far pulled on Americans.  The essence is this: for passenger cars, which dominate the nation's highways and city streets, ethanol alcohol is not fuel.  It takes up space in your tank; over time, it corrodes the engine.  Other than that, it evaporates.  You will not get any mileage out of ethanol; diluted ethanol is simply vodka, and if you fill your tank with vodka, it will not run.  The engines of our passenger cars are designed to run on petrol, a product made out of oil and not out of quickly fermented wheat, sugar cane, and the like, as is ethanol.  The difference in mileage is quite significant, ca. 25%. Nobody notices because one cannot get pure gas anymore, and thus comparison of the mileage is eliminated.

Ethanol and Biodiesel: Few Benefits, Many Problems.  Accounting for its effects on fuel economy, air quality, and food prices, biofuels likely produce net harms on balance.
  •   Ethanol and biodiesel are biofuels made from agricultural products.
  •   Ethanol has a lower energy density than gasoline, which means vehicles get fewer miles per gallon.
  •   Per unit of equivalent energy, ethanol produces more carbon dioxide than normal gasoline.
  •   Ethanol use in gasoline spiked after the banning of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) and the passage of the 2005 Renewable Fuel Standard program, from 1.5 percent of gasoline consumption in 2002 to 10.3 percent in 2020.
  •   Ethanol fuels produce more nitrogen oxides (NOx) and other air pollutants, which contribute to worsening air pollution, especially in summer months.

Ethanol must go!.  In June, the Biden regime raised the amount of ethanol required to be produced in 2022 to 15 billion gallons.  The supposed reason was to "reduce our reliance on foreign oil," which we easily do could do by drilling for more oil. [...] The claim that ethanol is a renewable fuel is not only dubious, it is a lie.  In a study dating back to 2009, a Cornell agricultural scientist found that an acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol.  But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels.  The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented.  As many as three distillation steps are needed to separate 8 percent ethanol from 92 percent water.  Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 Btu are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol.  One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 Btu.  This means that 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol.  Ethanol is not a renewable resource.

Halt use of biofuels to ease food crisis, says green group.  Governments should put a moratorium on the use of biofuels and lift bans on genetic modification of crops, a green campaigning group has urged, in the face of a growing global food crisis that threatens to engulf developing nations.  Ending the EU's requirement for biofuels alone would free up about a fifth of the potential wheat exports from Ukraine, and even more of its maize exports, enough to make a noticeable difference to stretched food supplies, according to analysis by the campaign group RePlanet.  About 3.3 m[illion] tonnes of wheat were used in 2020 as feedstock for EU biofuels, and Ukraine's 2020 wheat exports came to about 16.4 [million] tonnes.  About 6.5 [million] tonnes of maize was also used for EU biofuels, compared with about 24 [million] tonnes exported from Ukraine the same year.

Why are we feeding crops to our cars when people are starving?  There's nothing complicated about the effects of turning crops into biofuel.  If food is used to power cars or generate electricity or heat homes, either it must be snatched from human mouths, or ecosystems must be snatched from the planet's surface, as arable lands expand to accommodate the extra demand.  But governments and the industries that they favour obscure this obvious truth.  They distract and confuse us about an evidently false solution to climate breakdown.  From inception, the incentives and rules promoting biofuels on both sides of the Atlantic had little to do with saving the planet and everything to do with political expediency. [...] As biofuels raise demand for land, rainforests, marshes and savannahs in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil and Africa are cleared.  There's a limit to how much we can eat.  There's no limit to how much we can burn.  All the major crop sources of biodiesel have a higher climate impact than the fossil fuels they replace.  Rapeseed oil causes 1.2 times as much global heating, soy oil twice as much, palm oil three times.  The same goes for ethanol made from wheat.

Biden regime mandates more corn ethanol in gasoline to damage the engines of cars and trucks across America.  Instead of using abundant and easily obtained fossil fuels straight from the ground, the Biden regime's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just mandated the highest level yet of corn-based ethanol to be mixed into the nation's fuel supply.  Despite the fact that growing corn for ethanol is highly destructive to the environment (i.e., chemical pesticides and herbicides, excessive land use, genetic engineering, etc.), Biden and his cronies want more of it grown than ever before so it can be dumped into your gas tank, destroying your car's engine.  In 2022 alone, refiners will need to blend 20.77 billion gallons of ethanol, biodiesel and other "renewable" fuels into the gasoline supply.  This, claims the Resident-in-Chief, will help to stop inflation somehow.

You'll fill up more often, because ethanol yields less mileage per gallon.
Biden administration raises amount of ethanol that must be blended with gas.  The Biden administration on Friday set new requirements that increase the amount of ethanol that must be blended into the nation's gasoline supply but reduce previous ethanol-blending requirements due to a plunge in fuel demand during the coronavirus pandemic.  The Environmental Protection Agency said it would set the 2022 levels for corn-based ethanol blended into gasoline at 15 billion gallons.  But even as the new rules increased future ethanol requirements, the EPA retroactively reduced levels for 2020 by 2.5 billion gallons and by 1.2 billion gallons for 2021, reflecting the lower amount of ethanol produced and decreased sales of gasoline during a period when the virus led to a drop in driving.

Ethanol: a Dumb idea or a Crime — or Both.  Expanded use of ethanol — enabled by President Biden's lifting a summertime ban on fuels with a 15 percent blend — is a poor answer to high gasoline prices and a refusal to recognize the failures of the corn-based fuel additive.  Reuters described the president's action as a win for the corn lobby, but all others appear to be losers.  Shortcomings of ethanol as an alternative to gasoline have been reported continually since at least 2007 when the U.S. government expanded its requirement that distributors blend ethanol with fuels to reduce dependence on foreign oil.  The additive also has been touted as a way to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.  "There is a great danger for the right to food by the development of biofuels," U.N. human rights advocate Jean Ziegler said at the time.  "It (the price) will be paid perhaps by hundreds of thousands of people who will die from hunger."  A year later he called the diversion of food crops to fuel production a "crime against humanity."

How Long Can You Eat if Your Power Goes Out?  U.S. fertilizer prices have risen dramatically, in some cases fourfold in the last few years.  This not only creates huge upward price pressures, but impacts usage, potentially impacting yields.  Also Union Pacific has reduced major U.S. fertilizer companies, like CF Industries, one of America's largest, to shipping about 80% of their potential volumes.  This can result in some of America's premier farmlands, the Corn Belt, not getting adequate fertilizer during the critical spring planting season.  Ironically, "Union Pacific has said it is limiting rail traffic and hiring aggressively as part of a plan to improve service after grain and ethanol shippers complained about shortcomings."  So U.P. is limiting the food supply to further limit the food supply by converting more corn into ethanol — a devil's twofer.  And the Biden administration plans to increase ethanol limits.  A threefer.

New Iowa law requires more ethanol in state's gasoline.  Iowa is the first state in the nation to require most gas stations to sell fuel with at least 15% ethanol under a bill signed Tuesday by Gov. Kim Reynolds.  Reynolds signed the bill on a farm near Prairie City, about 20 miles east of Des Moines.  The Republican governor signed the bill on a flatbed wagon backed by tractors and corn planters, highlighting what she called a victory for Iowa farmers and biofuels advocates.  The ethanol industry consumes about half of Iowa's corn crop, and the state leads the nation in corn and ethanol production.

Death of Honey Bees From Ethanol Plant Prompts Call for Focus on Chemical Overloading.  Every year, honey bee colonies placed in multiple locations across the 9,600-acre University of Nebraska-Lincoln research center were dying — as it turns out, from widespread pollution originating from an ethanol facility located a few miles upstream.

Biden authorizes the emergency sale of ethanol-based E15 fuel this summer to combat soaring gas prices.  The Environmental Protection Agency issued an emergency waiver for a higher-ethanol gasoline blend on Friday, allowing summertime sales of the fuel in an attempt to help lower gasoline prices at the pump.  The move represents a temporary win for the biofuels industry and corn farmers, as it will likely expand sales of corn-based ethanol, and a setback for oil refiners, which view ethanol as competition.  It also is an attempt to temper the pace of inflation which has surged to a 16-year high and bring down gas prices that average $4.159 a gallon nationwide.  Rising consumer prices are seen as a major vulnerability for President Joe Biden's Democratic party leading into the November mid-term elections.

E15 fuel announcement will backfire.  The Biden administration has announced the suspension of the rule that prevented the sale of fuel containing up to 15% ethanol alcohol during the summer months.  The current rack price (wholesale price) of a gallon of ethanol is about 75% of the rack price of a gallon of pure gasoline, so the retail price of E15 fuel should be cheaper than regular E10 fuel by about 10 cents per gallon, according to the White House.  The additional ethanol will replace some petroleum-based fuel, which will slightly reduce the demand for crude oil and theoretically lower its price.  E15 (also known as Unleaded88) fuel sales have been banned from June 1 to September 15 because alcohol is more volatile than gasoline.  The concern was that ethanol evaporates more readily than gasoline in the summer heat, and then the fumes contribute to smog.  President Trump issued an executive order to allow the sale of E15 during the summer to please farmers, but courts overturned the order.  This time, President Biden had the EPA issue an emergency rule permitting summer sales of E15, but environmentalists may challenge this rule in court.

Biden Infuriates Environmentalists, Oil Refiners By Allowing More Ethanol In Gas To Lower Prices.  In his latest attempt to ease the relentless pain at the pump, President Biden has pulled off something remarkable.  He's managed to infuriate climate activists and the oil and gas industry, all while jacking up demand for America's most vital agricultural commodity:  corn.  The president is set to announce Tuesday during a visit to an ethanol plant in a remote town in Iowa that the EPA will eliminate restrictions on high-ethanol-content gasoline to be sold during the summer months.  The decision hasn't yet been confirmed, but senior administration sources have leaked the news to WSJ and a handful of other media outlets.

Joe Biden Announces a Mind-Numbingly Stupid Move on Gas Prices.  As has become typical during most Democrat administrations in the modern era, gas prices have exploded during Joe Biden's tenure.  The national average is hovering around $4.10 a gallon, nearly double what it cost the day Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election.  And while the White House would love to claim the rise is solely due to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the precipitous rise began over a year before that.  That's largely due to Biden's anti-energy policies.  While campaigning for president, he routinely promised to end the use of fossil fuels.  As president, he's shut down pipelines and frozen federal leases.  The United States, after becoming energy independent under Donald Trump, is once again reliant on foreign tyrants.

Children of the Corn and the Fraud of Renewable Energy.  [Scroll down]  Since 2005, Congress has required oil refineries to add ethanol, mostly from corn, to their gasoline.  It's called the "Renewable Fuel Standard" (RFS). [...] [Mario] Loyola explains how RFS is not only uneconomic, but is destroying the environment.  Loyola asserts that "today's corn-ethanol program is a glaring failure, and it is unconscionable that politicians of both parties are conspiring to keep it alive despite knowing full well what its problems are."  Ethanol has about one-third less energy than does gasoline.  So cars using ethanol get fewer miles per gallon.  Flex-fuel vehicles that use E85 get up to 27 percent fewer miles per gallon.  A huge problem with corn ethanol as a fuel for ICE (internal combustion engines) is its EROI, i.e. its energy return on investment.  EROI is the amount of energy produced against the amount of energy used to produce it.  The formula for EROI is the energy output divided by the energy input.  An EROI of 1.0 would mean that you're expending as much energy to produce energy as the energy being produced, so it's would be a wash, a draw, and utter folly to produce energy with such a low EROI.  Corn ethanol has an EROI of 1.5 as compared to gasoline's 11.  Because of corn ethanol's low EROI, you're basically swapping one type of energy for another.

How To Fix The Ethanol Industry.  In the previous column, I described what I believe are the problems with the nation's ethanol program.  In a nutshell, the U.S. government creates demand for ethanol via federal mandate.  This mandate pits states, powerful public interests, and various political groups against each other.  As a result, proponents and opponents fight a never-ending war around these mandates.  This means there is year-to-year uncertainty that impacts ethanol producers.  The ethanol mandate is unpopular in states that don't produce much ethanol, in the refining industry, among environmental groups, and among many food manufacturers (who feel it artificially drives up the cost of corn).  Supporters of the mandate include large swaths of the Midwest, where ethanol supports numerous jobs — both in the ethanol industry and among corn farmers.  This support includes a powerful farm lobby, and a powerful bipartisan block of farm state senators that consistently supports ethanol.

Stop the Ethanol Madness.  As a way to replace dwindling reserves of oil, ethanol subsidies had a certain brutal logic, especially if oil prices were going to keep rising with no end in sight.  But as a way to address climate change, the program never made any sense.  Corn ethanol may well be worse for the climate than fossil fuels, and the program does significant damage to both the economy and the environment.  Its sole beneficiaries are large agricultural corporations — and the politicians who serve them.  Corn ethanol is the mainstay of the nation's Renewable Fuel Standard, which was created in 2005 when gasoline prices finally rose again, though that price shock, too, proved fleeting.  The RFS creates a complex web of targets for both corn ethanol and "advanced biofuels."  To qualify as "advanced," biofuels such as biodiesel (from sources such as palm oil and recycled cooking oil) and futuristic cellulosic ethanol (from sources such as prairie grass and tree bark) must have a significantly lower greenhouse effect than corn ethanol.  The RFS program created both a gradually rising biofuel mandate, and within that mandate, a gradually rising proportion of advanced biofuels (particularly cellulosic ethanol) relative to corn ethanol, such that advanced biofuels are supposed to make up the majority of the mandated volume by 2022.

New study casts doubt on ethanol's climate benefits.  A new study is casting doubt on the climate benefits of using ethanol as a fuel, finding that it may actually contribute more to global warming than gasoline.  Researchers found that emissions from changes in land use to account for the growing demand for corn make corn-based ethanol no cleaner than gasoline.  In fact, they determined that these changes likely make ethanol's emissions at least 24 percent higher than those for gasoline, according to their study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Now is the Time to Get Serious About Nuclear Energy.  Still another policy disaster Democrats have foisted on us is ethanol.  It is the most land greedy of the "green energy' alternatives.  Ethanol is a witches' brew of politics, taxpayer confiscation, mileage reduction, and small-engine destruction.  We're creating giant land footprints in a futile attempt to reduce our "carbon footprints."  Land footprints are real problems in the here and now.  Carbon footprints are unproven, hypothetical problems in the distant future.  We now devote fully one-fourth of our corn-growing farmland to the production of ethanol. [...] Coercion is also a necessary part of the ethanol fiasco.  In California it's illegal to use ethanol-free gasoline on public roads.  You can buy ethanol-free gasoline for your lawnmower at only a few locations and at prices even higher than California's already highest prices in the country.  Federal mandates require virtually all gasoline to include 10 percent ethanol.  There is pressure to increase that to 15 percent.  Even the 10 percent gasoline reduces mileage because ethanol produces only 70 percent of the energy produced by gasoline.  Ethanol takes more energy to produce than it produces.

Environmental regulations strike again:
Plans for $2 billion Washington methanol plant 'effectively ended,' as company terminates lease.  Plans for a more than $2 billion Southwest Washington methanol plant are "effectively ended," according to a Friday [6/11/2021] statement from Port of Kalama officials, as Northwest Innovation Works — denied a permit by the state this year — will terminate its site lease.  The project, years in the planning, suffered a big setback in January when the state Department of Ecology rejected a request for a shoreline permit required to build the plant, which would have been one of the Pacific Northwest's largest users of natural gas.  Northwest Innovation officials, in a statement Friday, said in the aftermath of that permit denial, Washington's "regulatory environment has become unclear and unpredictable."  That statement said the company is assessing "an appropriate path forward," and is developing other projects, including one to produce hydrogen.  The statement did not include information about possible sites for new projects.

Corn Is the Latest Commodity to Soar.  America's biggest cash crop has rarely been more expensive.  Corn prices have risen roughly 50% in 2021 and a bushel costs more than twice what it did a year ago.  Corn has been one of the sharpest risers in the broad rally in raw materials that is prompting companies to boost prices for goods and fueling concern among investors that inflation could hobble the post-pandemic economic recovery.  Lumber prices have shot to more than four times what is typical, pushing up home prices and obliterating renovation budgets.  Copper, a cog of industry found throughout the home and in electronics, hit record prices Friday.  Crude oil hasn't cost so much since 2018 and soybeans are trading at their loftiest level since 2012.

Corn Prices Rise 30 Percent So Far This Year.  You've likely seen mentions of inflation popping up amid some MSM discussions.  Without a doubt you have seen significant price jumps at your local supermarket.  The reason is simple, JoeBama's economic policies are beneficial to the multinationals, crushing to the domestic U.S. economy and driving massive increases in prices in a variety of sectors.  As a consequence the leftist financial media (almost all financial media) are churning out deflection points, but if you understand the background you can predictably see the cause and effect.

Not so Green.  [Scroll down]  Then we have the biofuels scandals.  This is UN-promoted stupidity where forests are logged in America and shipped across the Atlantic to burn in a British power station; where native forests are cleared in Indonesia and Brazil to grow palm oil for bio-diesel; and where food grains are distilled to make ethanol fuel for motor vehicles.  Nothing green about any of this.

Trump Is Totally Caving On The Ethanol Question — Again.  One of the more disappointing aspects of Donald Trump's presidency, at least for me, has been his continued support for both the execrable Renewable Fuel Standard and the ethanol lobby, particularly in Iowa.  Sadly, in a pre-October surprise, the President has handed yet another gift to those players while dealing yet another blow to America's drivers, boaters and the fossil fuel industry.  This weekend, Trump approved the use of gas pumps designated for 10% ethanol blends for E15, or 15% blends, subject to state approval.  The political component of this decision doesn't even make much sense, to say nothing of the confusion it will cause among consumers and potential, costly damage to small engines and marine motors.  And yet, here we are.

States ask EPA for nationwide biofuel waiver to help oil refiners weather coronavirus.  The governors of five U.S. states have asked the Trump administration for a nationwide waiver exempting the oil-refining industry from the nation's biofuel laws to help it survive a demand meltdown caused by the coronavirus outbreak, according to letters seen by Reuters.  The request places Republican President Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election in November, in a tough spot between the oil and agriculture industries, two important constituencies.  They are being particularly hard-hit by the global pandemic as it decimates energy consumption, breaks transport supply chains and makes labor harder to come by.

Nearly 30% of ethanol plants idled, including four in Minnesota.  Four Minnesota ethanol plants are idled and many more have throttled back production as COVID-19 has sapped gasoline demand, crushing the biofuel industry.  U.S. ethanol production has hit an all-time low.  Nearly 30% of the nation's 204 biofuel plants have been idled since March 1, while many others have slashed production.  "The fuel market is just telling us to shut down and not operate," said Randall Doyal, CEO of Al-Corn Clean Fuel in the southern Minnesota town of Claremont.  "Economically, its abysmal."

EPA looks at suspending ethanol blending requirement.  I'm not sure how much this will matter now that we're basically out of places to store all of the oil that we're pumping, but it's still worth looking this proposal over.  Last week we discussed the possible opportunity available to us if the EPA would agree to at least suspend the mandates of the Renewable Fuel Standard until the worst of the pandemic is behind us.  Getting rid of it entirely would be preferable, but that would require congressional action that the Democrats would never agree to and it's unclear if the President could be convinced to support the idea even if they did.

Corn Squeezing.  Every time Americans fuel up their vehicles, they're unwillingly lining the pockets of the politically powerful agribusiness cartels — as well as foreign ethanol cartels — to the tune of billions through a pervasive but hidden tax on fuel that forces them to pay for ethanol mixed in with their gas.  And soybeans with their diesel.  It's done under the auspices of something called the Renewable Fuels Standard — which is actually a Carter-era mandate that requires that almost all the "gas" sold in the United States contain at least 10 percent not-gas (ethanol alcohol, made from corn) in order to "conserve" the actual gas.  Same with diesel, much of which is made — by mandate — from soybean squeezings rather than oil.  In fact, the RFS is probably the single-greatest (and worst) example of corporate rent-seeking in the history of the United States.  A mandated "market" for a product — ethanol (and soybeans) that would have a hard time on the free market, if these "renewables" had to sell on their merits.

The Renewable Fuel Standard is killing the environment.  According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this year's "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, where oxygen levels are so low that sea life is killed or maimed, was larger than three U.S. states.  One significant cause is agricultural runoff jettisoned from the Mississippi River, which feeds the massive algal blooms whose decomposition depletes water oxygen.  Like many other ongoing environmental problems affecting the Midwest, this one is aggravated by the Renewable Fuel Standard.  The RFS is intended to promote the production of biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.  Designers of the policy envisioned corn ethanol leading initial growth in biofuel sales, followed by more advanced biofuel varieties that would be made from grasses or crop wastes rather than food.

End the Failed Renewable Fuel Standard Experiment.  Since 2005, the federal government has required that refineries blend increasing amounts of ethanol (grain alcohol) with gasoline.  There are requirements for cellulosic, biodiesel, and advanced biofuels, with the rest of the mandate typically being met by corn ethanol since it is the cheapest.  The stated goals of the RFS were to reduce reliance on foreign energy and to move toward cleaner fuel sources.  It falls short on both fronts.  Worries about dependence on foreign oil were mitigated by the U.S. shale oil and fracking boom, exemplifying the sort of innovation and market changes that central planners inevitably fail to account for.  The RFS is worse than unnecessary when it comes to reducing foreign energy consumption, which is itself a goal of dubious benefit.  The RFS works against this objective because meeting the excessive biodiesel mandate has actually required significant imports.

Trump says farmers will be 'so happy' with new plan to boost ethanol.  President Trump said Thursday he's preparing to announce a "giant package" to boost demand for ethanol, responding to rising concerns in rural America about the administration's exemptions for refineries from blending biofuels. [...] Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told farmers and producers in Illinois Wednesday that Mr. Trump will soon announce a plan to "mitigate" the loss of an estimated 4 billion gallons of ethanol from refinery exemptions granted by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Trump intervention triggered EPA's surprise biofuel waiver decision: sources.  A phone call from US President Donald Trump last week ended a nearly two-month-long review of the nation's biofuels program, three sources familiar with the matter said, with the White House siding in favor of oil refiners over corn growers.  Trump gave Andrew Wheeler, head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, the green light for the regulator to announce it had granted 31 small refinery exemptions out of the 40 applications, saying he wanted the issue off his desk, the sources said.

Corn at the Pump.  We don't have food scarcity in America.  We have surpluses.  American agriculture inspired an industry of farm equipment and machinery that is supreme in the world.  John Deere.  New Holland.  Massey Ferguson.  So it seemed simple enough to replace the oil we couldn't extract from the ground with a bi-product of the things we could make grow out of it.  That would be ethanol.  And Americans surely did know how to make that.  They had been doing it right from the nation's beginning, turning American corn into American bourbon.  Mostly legal.  Sometimes not.  In which case it was called moonshine, the scientific and boring name for which is "ethanol."  It also works with the internal combustion engine.  The car you drive burns the stuff.  So do your lawnmower, chainsaw, and outboard.  With less satisfactory results.  Ethanol is not generally kind to two stroke engines.  A small engine mechanic I know says the stuff doesn't just keep him in business.  It pays for his vacations.

Trump lifts year-round ethanol restrictions, could lower gas prices.  The Trump administration on Friday [5/31/2019] announced that it would allow for the year-round sale of gasoline with higher concentrations of ethanol.  The action addresses a rule the Environmental Protection Agency had in place preventing the sale of so-called E15 fuel, which contains 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline, between June 1 and Sept. 15.  The purpose was to prevent air pollution and curb dependence on foreign petroleum, but the ban has stopped some retailers from selling E15 at all because of the need to change out pumps.

Waive goodbye to ethanol.  Markets thrive on competition.  Unfortunately, this doesn't just apply to real economic markets.  It also applies to markets for bad ideas and political pandering.  With approximately 200 Democrats now running for president (we lost count a few weeks ago), the bidding to bribe Iowa caucusgoers is becoming intense.  This is unfortunate not just because it is unseemly but also because the offers are coming at the expense of the nation's well-being and the environment's health.  The worst pander so far comes from Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.  When she is not privately belittling her staff in ALL CAPS 4 a.m. emails, Klobuchar is attempting to gain traction in Iowa by fattening the wallets of ethanol barons.  Her specific plan is to stop granting waivers to small refiners that let gasoline producers out of a small part of the requirement that they mix their product with large volumes of ethanol, which is economically unnecessary and environmentally harmful.

Climate and the fate of corn.  Corn as a source of food for humans in the U.S. has a buffer in the 30% of the crop that goes to the ethanol mandate.  The focus on climate may also go from being a way to thrash the economy with carbon taxes to its impact on food prices.

The Absurdity of Using the Biosphere to Power the Technosphere.  There are two main types of biofuel, bioethanol and biodiesel.  The primary sources of bioethanol are corn and sugarcane; the primary source of biodiesel is palm oil.  In both cases, the spread of plantations to grow these crops has devastated some of the most fragile ecosystems on the planet.  From cane ethanol in Brazil, to palm oil in Indonesia, thousands of square miles of rainforest are lost every year to new plantations.  In 2016, for a few brief weeks, the world paid attention to the problems being caused by biofuel production.  That was when forest fires raged across Indonesia, sending a toxic haze across thousands of miles, making the air barely breathable for millions of people in Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Singapore and Malaysia.  The cause of these fires?  Land owners burning rainforests to make room for palm oil plantations.  The idea that achieving alleged "carbon neutrality" is a sufficient benefit to offset the replacement of rainforest with monocrop plantations of palm trees and sugar cane is ridiculous.

Midwest floods threaten ethanol supply, could affect prices at the pump.  As waters from last week's catastrophic floods in the Midwest begin to recede, people are getting a chance to assess the damages in the region.  Several people have lost their homes, farms, and livestock.  In Nebraska alone, farmers and ranchers face up to $880 billion in losses.  But, the consequences of the devastation are being felt beyond the heartland.  Several railroad tracks are damaged, affecting the shipment of ethanol and, in turn, potentially raising gas prices weeks before summer driving season.

Researchers: Biofuels mandate may cause more harm than good with plowed-up land.  Hundreds of thousands of acres of grasslands and wild habitat in the Upper Midwest have been plowed up to plant corn and soybeans in the past decade because of demand created by the government's ethanol mandate, according to a trio of academic researchers who argue that federal biofuels policy is causing more environmental harm than good.  Their study, released Thursday [3/7/2019], found that the shift has destroyed crucial habitat for monarch butterflies and increased the use of chemical fertilizers, while causing the release of millions of tons of carbon dioxide — equal to putting about 5 million more cars on the road each year.

How ethanol threatens energy security.  [I]t is disheartening to see the future of small refineries in increasing peril as government officials wrestle over renewable fuel policies.  The crux of the issue relates to federal requirements that compel corn-based ethanol to be blended into motor fuels as a way to reduce American dependence on foreign petroleum imports.  There is also a laudable green energy component to the ethanol mandate, but it is arguable that as much carbon is emitted through ethanol production as would be released by fuel combustion alone.  The requirement to blend the fuel has been placed on the refineries by law but most small refineries were built decades ago and lack the capability to produce the mix.  As a result, a complicated system of credits was created under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which are a lot like the infamous cap-and-trade program.

Biofuels mandate fueling wildlife crisis.  More than 10 years ago, the National Wildlife Federation supported passage of the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).  We agreed with the aspiration to develop cleaner, more sustainable fuels to help the country gain energy independence while promoting a healthier environment.  We were promised that no habitat would be lost, that the RFS would accelerate development of truly advanced, low-emission biofuels, and that the program would be halted if adverse impacts occurred.  Every one of those promises has been broken, repeatedly.

The ethanol quagmire.  As it does every fall, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it is mandating even higher levels of ethanol in our transportation fuel supply while ignoring market realities and the negative impact of the federal Renewable Fuel Standard on American consumers.  The Renewable Fuel Standard, enacted under President George W. Bush in 2005 and expanded in 2007, requires ever-increasing amounts of biofuels to be mixed with fossil fuels each year until 2022.  And the EPA has been issuing mandates each November for more biofuels, particularly ethanol.

Ethanol Is Bad Science And Bad Policy.  It is energy and cost intensive to turn corn into fuel, which is why it cannot survive without government mandates and subsidies.  Though 1994 made ethanol a reality for environmentalists, it was the Renewable Fuel Standard of 2005, by President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress, that really kicked the industry into high gear.  The Renewable Fuel Standard gave EPA the authority to create quotas for ethanol[,] which forced its use even though it is less efficient than pure gasoline and results in lower miles per gallon.  In 1993, before Vice President Gore allowed EPA to mandate ethanol, it accounted for less than one-tenth of 1 percent of fuel.  It's now 10 percent.  President Barack Obama also did the environment no favors by turning over 5 million acres of land designated for conservation over to corn farmers to promote ethanol as "green" energy during his time in office, with another million acres of farmland that switched to corn because the profits were guaranteed by taxpayers.  Ethanol does not pass any standard for evidence-based policymaking and the Trump administration should end 24 years of government wishful thinking by his predecessors rather than increasing its use.

Ethanol Mandate Wastes Money, Pollutes Air, And Ruins Cars — Don't Expand It, End It.  Some people have called the new plan to boost ethanol to 15% of our gasoline fuel supply a "reform" of the ethanol program.  It's not.  It's an expansion of the program, which should instead be shut down.

Trump to move to allow year-round E15 gas sales.  The Trump administration is moving to allow the sale of gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol year-round, which would help farmers by increasing demand for corn, but faces opposition from environmental groups and the oil industry.  President Donald Trump is expected to make the announcement ahead of a rally Tuesday in Iowa, the biggest corn-producing state in the nation.  Current rules prevent the sale of fuel containing 15 percent ethanol, known as E15, during the summer because it can contribute to smog on hot days.

Want to feed the world?  Stop burning ethanol.  The question was posed:  "Just how much food value are we burning up for the sake of this federally imposed silliness?"  The answer was found in a paper by D.K. Albino, published by the New England Complex Systems Institute:  "The total amount of ethanol produced in the US in 2011 was 13.95 billion gallons, enough to feed 570 million people that year."  Now, that number is so large that it does not seem real.  So your humble narrator made his own research to find "the real number."

EPA finally admits ethanol mandate is causing environmental damage.  The federal requirement to blend ethanol into gasoline on the theory that it will reduce the hypothetical global warming that hasn't appeared yet has been a joke from the start.  By adding a huge amount of demand for corn, it did push up prices for that commodity, and made vast swaths of the rural Midwest prosperous, though it has injured poor Mexicans and others who depend on corn for a substantial portion of their nutrition and driven up the rice of feed used for animals, raising meat prices.

EPA Says Ethanol Damages The Environment — Isn't It Time To Kill The Program?  Amid all the media hoo-ha over President Trump's latest tweets, tariffs and the Russia investigation, you might have missed a significant report — the Environmental Protection Agency says ethanol made from corn and soybeans and added to our gasoline has become an environmental disaster.  So why do we continue to make it?

EPA Releases Long Delayed Report on Ethanol and the Environment.  An extensive report from the Environmental Protection Agency found that including ethanol into the U.S. gas supply is wreaking havoc on the atmosphere and soil.  In a study titled "Biofuels and the Environment:  The Second Triennial Report to Congress," the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that ethanol derived from corn and soybeans is causing serious harm to the environment.  Water, soil and air quality were all found to be adversely affected by biofuel mandates.  "Evidence since enactment of [the Energy Independence and Security Act] suggests an increase in acreage planted with soybeans and corn, with strong indications from observed changes in land use that some of this increase is a consequence of increased biofuel production," read a portion of the 159-page report.

EPA says ethanol harms the environment.  Beginning in the 1980s, the federal government has adopted mandates requiring ethanol be mixed into gasoline in order to stretch out oil supplies and to save the environment.  Now the Environmental Protection Agency has finally admitted that ethanol does more harm than good.  The agency finally released a 159-page assessment, which included this passage, "Evidence since enactment of [the Energy Independence and Security Act] suggests an increase in acreage planted with soybeans and corn, with strong indications from observed changes in land use that some of this increase is a consequence of increased biofuel production."

Irony Alert:  EPA Finds Ethanol Is Environmentally Damaging.  Amid growing demands from the corn lobby that the government mandate even more ethanol be blended into the nation's gasoline supplies, new finding call such proposals into question.  One of the chief claims of the corn lobby is that ethanol is a more "green" type of energy because it's renewable.  From there, the argument is extended to claim that it's better for the environment all the way around.  But the conclusions of a study underlying the latest EPA report on the environmental impact of ethanol (seven years in the making, dating back well into the Obama administration) concludes that the opposite is true.  Ethanol produces significant negative impacts on the environment, in some cases worse than the gasoline it's supposed to be replacing.

The ethanol gravy train rolls on.  Like most people I've spoken with, I have no innate, inflexible antipathy to ethanol in gasoline.  What upsets me are the deceptive claims used to justify adding mostly corn-based ethanol to this indispensable fuel; the way seriously harmful unintended consequences are brushed aside; and the insidious crony corporatist system the ethanol program has spawned between producers and members of Congress.  What angers me are the legislative and regulatory mandates that force us to buy gasoline that is 10% ethanol — even though it gets lower mileage than 100% gasoline, brings none of the proclaimed benefits (environmental or otherwise), drives up food prices, and damages small engines.  In fact, in most areas, it's almost impossible to find E-zero gasoline, and that problem will get worse as mandates increase.

Is Ethanol Cronyism on the Ropes?  Congress created the requirement to blend plant-based ethanol into the nation's fuel supply supposedly out of concern for greenhouse gas emissions, as well as out of a fear that consumers would become increasingly reliant on foreign fuels just as global oil prices seemed to be skyrocketing.  It was wrong on both counts.  The Government Accountability Office consistently projects that the RFS won't meet its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  In stark contrast, a 2016 University of Minnesota study finds that an unintended consequence of the biofuel mandate is that it actually increases net greenhouse gas emissions.  As the authors explain, the RFS creates a "market rebound effect" whereby the mandated expansion of biofuel production increases the overall fuel supply.  This in turn lowers fuel prices, which encourages greater consumption.  The lower emissions from biofuel use, based on Environmental Protection Agency figures, aren't enough to offset the overall increase in fuel consumption.  And this analysis doesn't even get into the debate over the full life-cycle impact of ethanol production.

Here are 1,366 well sourced examples of Barack Obama's lies, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, waste, etc..  [#247] The EPA has a very expensive ethanol mandate that applies to all oil refineries.  However, in August 2013, it was reported that Obama had given one oil refinery an exemption from this mandate.  This exemption is illegal for two reasons.  First, the exemption was not approved by Congress.  And secondly, the Constitution requires that federal laws apply equally to everyone.  In addition, Obama refused to say which refinery it was that received this exemption, which is completely contrary to his repeated promises of "transparency."

In concession to ethanol industry, Trump says he backs E15 gasoline year-round.  President Trump on Thursday said the administration will approve year-round sales of gasoline with 15 percent ethanol — a major policy shift for the federal government that indicates the White House is looking to strike a deal between the biofuels industry and its critics.  Mr. Trump made the declaration in the Oval Office on Thursday morning [4/12/2018].  "We're going to raise it up to 15 percent ... makes a lot of people happy," the president said.  "We're going to go to 12 months ... We'll go from eight months to 12 months."

Quit Digging.  EPA with the help of corn state representatives dug a ditch when they created the ethanol mandate, the renewable fuel standard and then created renewable identification numbers-RINs — as a mechanism to track compliance with blending requirements.  RINs worked to the advantage of companies with blending capabilities but created a big disadvantage for independent refiners that had to buy RINs — blending credits.  In addition, traders found a way, as they always do, to turn RINs into a commodity that they could buy and sell and hence turn a profit.  Recently, the largest independent refiner on the east coast declared bankruptcy because of the high cost of RINs.  According

Environmental Illusion and a Public Swindle.  According to environmentalists and the Renewable Fuels Association, the ethanol mandate in the Clean Air Act as modified by the Energy Policy Acts of 2005 and 2007 has resulted in cleaner air and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.  In reality, the mandate has produced no real environmental benefits while enriching corn farmers, large retailers, and ethanol manufacturers and imposing unnecessary and unreasonable costs on fuel producers and auto manufacturers.  It has also had a negative effect on food prices.

Environmental groups back Ted Cruz, Republicans on overhaul of Renewable Fuel Standard.  Green groups were among the loudest champions for the federal government's sweeping ethanol mandate a decade ago, touting it as a near-magic fuel that could help ease a climate crisis.  But the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) that boosted ethanol use has fallen out of favor so badly that environmentalists now see themselves on the same side of the debate as Republicans such as Sen. Ted Cruz, arguing that the entire program is deeply flawed and must be completely overhauled.  The intense opposition to the RFS from environmental and conservation groups comes as the White House and congressional leaders work to craft the most serious reforms the program has seen since it was established more than 10 years ago.  As Republicans and oil-industry groups bemoan the RFS as a job killer in the oil refining sector, environmentalists say their once-high hopes that ethanol could reduce carbon emissions, preserve land and help fight climate change have been proven wrong.

Good news:  Dems admit ethanol mandate failed — Bad news:  Trump promised to save it.  Created as a means to combat so-called climate change, the RFS required that ever-increasing amounts of ethanol be blended into gasoline.  And despite documented evidence of ethanol's damage to consumers and the environment, the RFS became little more than another taxpayer-subsidized, crony-capitalist, corporate-welfare program where the federal government picks the winners (Big Corn) and the losers (everyone else).  In a sort of good news/bad news announcement last week, key Democrats behind the biofuel push contained in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 announced that they had "made a mistake" with the ethanol mandate, and they introduced new legislation to fix it.  "The law hasn't worked out as we intended," said former California Congressman and Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Henry Waxman.  Following a joint call with reporters, Waxman joined current members of Congress, Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Sen Tom Udall (D-NM), to introduce legislation that will phase out corn-based ethanol.

The great rethink of ethanol.  For the first time in years, there is an emerging consensus that the biggest racket in national politics deserves to end.  Earlier this month, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and 10 other Republican senators held a luncheon summit at the White House with President Trump with the goal of drastically reforming the Renewable Fuel Standard, the federal mandate that annually funnels $13.5 billion from the wallets of American fuel and food consumers into the coffers of agribusiness giants.  Before the national nightmare of Obamacare, there was the RFS, the most sweeping and intrusive federal intervention in the American economy undertaken in modern history.  Enacted under President George W. Bush in 2005 and expanded in 2007, the RFS requires that biofuels, mainly ethanol, be increasingly mixed with gasoline in greater proportions each year until 2022.

Time for the ethanol lobby to be put out to grass, Sen. Grassley.  The ethanol lobby is talking tough and issuing ultimatums to the Trump White House.  Its message, in brief, is "Don't mess with our federal mandate."  If the White House wants credibility in its free-enterprise talk and promises to drain the swamp, it should tell the ethanol lobby to get lost.  The fight began because refiners are finding it increasingly unaffordable to comply with the federal ethanol mandate, and if it continues it might kill independent oil companies.  The office of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, came to the White House on Wednesday and sought to dictate terms, telling the executive it could provide whatever relief it chose to those independent refiners, but it mustn't touch the mandate, officially called the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Get the EPA out of the way of American exporters.  When Americans think of exporting goods, they rarely, if ever, think of ethanol.  But America has a growing ethanol export industry being constrained by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  A few minor changes to rules within the EPA can create a substantial increase in ethanol exports, which means more work for everyone in the value chain for ethanol from the farmer to tanker.  Creating more demand for your product makes economic sense.  The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a federal program that requires transportation fuel to contain a minimum amount of renewable fuels.  The program originated in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, H.R. 6.  The RFS was later amended with the passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, H.R.6.  The statute required the U.S. to use four billion gallons of renewable fuel starting in 2006 reaching thirty-six billion gallons in 2022.

Filling the Swamp Isn't Draining it!.  The ethanol mandate originated in the 1990 Clean Air Amendments and was added as a way of buying agriculture's support.  It was not needed for clean air purposes then and it is not needed for greenhouse emission reductions now.  It's only benefit is to enrich corn farmers and ethanol manufacturers.  At the time of the Clean Air debate, the oil and auto industries urged Congress to set tailpipe emission standards and let the two industries work together to meet them.  Instead, Congress wrote a formula for gasoline into legislation.  When the ethanol mandate switched from being about clean air to climate change, advocates claimed that it would result in lower greenhouse gas emissions.  The evidence demonstrates the opposite.

Trump Bends The Knee To King Corn.  [T]oday's energy picture makes the ethanol mandate entirely obsolete.  Thanks to the fracking revolution, the U.S. is now awash in domestic supplies of oil and natural gas.  Oil prices have dropped and net imports are lower than they've been in more than 30 years.  The U.S. could become a net exporter of oil within a decade.  So the idea that replacing some oil with ethanol is vital to national security or stable energy prices is a relic of a bygone era.  Nor is the RFS a win for the environment.  In fact, various studies have shown that, when you consider the entire life cycle of each energy source, ethanol is a bigger polluter than gasoline.  A 2014 University of Minnesota study, for example, found that "corn ethanol is about twice as damaging to the air quality as gasoline."  The Environmental Working Group has called ethanol "a disaster for the climate."

EPA chief Scott Pruitt has 'epiphany,' sides with ethanol industry in key policy fight.  After heavy pressure from lawmakers and other stakeholders, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Thursday night sided with pro-ethanol lawmakers and said his agency will abandon many controversial changes to the nation's ethanol mandate — prompting a top biofuels leader to claim that Mr. Pruitt apparently has had an "epiphany" over the past few days.  In a letter to seven key senators, Mr. Pruitt — who had been critical of ethanol during his time as Oklahoma attorney general — shot down several major concerns about looming adjustments to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the federal law that requires the blending of ethanol with gasoline.  The letter comes just days after Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican and perhaps the loudest pro-ethanol voice in Congress, threatened to hold up nominees for top-level EPA posts if Mr. Pruitt didn't acquiesce to their demands on the RFS.

Study finds:  Corn better used as food than biofuel.  Corn is grown not only for food, it is also an important renewable energy source.  Renewable biofuels can come with hidden economic and environmental issues, and the question of whether corn is better utilized as food or as a biofuel has persisted since ethanol came into use.  For the first time, researchers at the University of Illinois have quantified and compared these issues in terms of economics of the entire production system to determine if the benefits of biofuel corn outweigh the costs.

The Ethanol Boondoggle Will Continue.  Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue informed reporters this past weekend that one promise Donald Trump intends to keep is his support for ethanol.  At a farming event in Iowa with Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and Rep. Steve King, Perdue said, "Ethanol is here to stay, and we're going to work for new technologies to be more efficient."  Unfortunately, this is one Trump campaign promise that would have been good to break.  The Renewable Fuel Standard — known as the ethanol mandate — is a classic example of what happens when the government interferes in the marketplace, with an agenda to boot.  Through presidential administrations both Republican and Democrat, the government has heavily subsidized the production and distribution of ethanol, as well as required a certain amount of its use, in the hopes of making renewable fuels the next great thing.  That hope hasn't been realized.

Trump's agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, declares that 'ethanol is here to stay'.  For a few moments, President Trump seemed like he might back away from the country's costly ethanol mandate.  First, Trump tapped an ethanol opponent to head up the Environmental Protection Agency.  Then in February the president plugged market deregulation for the renewable fuel industry instead of government subsidization.  But those hopes officially came crashing down this weekend when U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue fastened a little pin to his jacket lapel that read "Don't mess with the RFS."

Increasing number of Americans are willing to drive farther, pay more for ethanol-free fuel.  Ethanol's rise over the past decade has given birth to an under-the-radar market:  Americans who are willing to travel miles out of their way and pay significantly more per gallon for ethanol-free fuel.  Like locally sourced food or antibiotic-free chickens and eggs, so-called E0, or "pure gas," has generated a cultlike following willing to pay a premium.  More than 12,000 service stations across the U.S. and Canada now offer E0, according to pure-gas.org and other groups that track fuel trends.  While federal mandates make finding pure gas somewhat difficult — the vast majority of stations in the U.S. sell primarily E10, gasoline blended with about 10 percent ethanol — specialists say there is a dedicated market for the product.

Renewable energy tax cut rewrite may be uphill battle for GOP.  In 2016, renewable energy received $10.9 billion in tax preferences, compared to $4.6 billion for fossil fuels.  A decade ago, fossil fuels got $8.2 billion while renewables pulled in only $5.3 billion in tax preferences, according to Congressional Budget Office figures recently presented to Congress.  The dynamic began to shift in the early days of the Obama administration.  The massive American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, along with ramped-up production in the wind and solar power sectors, shifted tax preferences toward renewable energy; from 2008 to 2009, for example, tax preferences for green fuels jumped by nearly $10 billion, from $7.4 billion to $17.1 billion.  At the same time, tax preferences for fossil fuels decreased from $5.5 billion in 2008 to $3.6 billion in 2009.

How The Ethanol Mandate Is Killing The American Prairie.  According to a report by the Organic Consumers Association, 95% of the 240 million acres of prairie land that once blanketed the middle of our country, from Texas to North Dakota, already is gone.  Only isolated pockets of prairie tall grass, some 35 million acres set aside for soil and wildlife conservation, remain.  And that — largely in the Great Plains — is at risk of being destroyed.  Among the factors most responsible for this tragic loss of our prairie heritage is the federal renewable fuel standard, a congressional mandate requiring refiners to mix renewable fuel (mostly corn-based ethanol) with U.S. gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and heating oil products.  The renewable fuel standard has generated a huge surge in ethanol production, increasing from 9 billion gallons in 2009 to 15.9 billion gallons per year today, according to the Energy Information Administration.  By 2022 the total is projected to reach 36 billion gallons.  Ethanol per se is not the problem, however; Washington's lack of common sense is the problem.

Ethanol Mandates Mean Big Profits for Big Oil.  When the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was signed into law by then-President George W. Bush, it was well-intended:  It would increase America's oil independence and reduce dependence on foreign oil, it would produce cleaner air, and it would help farmers.  The Act required refiners to add ethanol to every gallon of gasoline they produced.  If a refiner decided it couldn't (too costly) or wouldn't (internal decision) do so, it would be required to buy ethanol credits.  Those credits, called RINs (for Renewable Identification Numbers), are now being traded and reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in gains for the big oil companies.  According to the New York Times, the Act has "inadvertently become a multi-billion-dollar windfall for some of the world's biggest oil companies."

Green Pixie Dust Energy Policies.  [Scroll down]  As to getting all US energy from "clean, renewable" sources by 2050, that is a ridiculous pipe dream.  The United States currently plants corn on an area the size of Iowa, to produce ethanol that accounts for 10% of its gasoline fuel blend.  Replacing 100% of US gasoline and diesel with corn ethanol would require cropland the size of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico combined!  Plus massive amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides, tractor and truck fuel, and electricity for distilleries.

Ethanol Harms Cars, the Economy, and the Environment.  A new study from the University of Michigan confirms what pretty much everyone knew all along.  Researchers found that biofuels actually create more greenhouse gases than simply using petroleum, because plants only absorb a fraction of the carbon dioxide released by burning the fuels in the first place.  Moreover, ethanol production and distribution is energy-intensive, throwing off even more greenhouse gases.  "When you look at what's actually happening on the land, you find that not enough carbon is being removed from the atmosphere to balance what's coming out of the tailpipe," University of Michigan professor John DeCicco said.  "When it comes to the emissions that cause global warming, it turns out that biofuels are worse than gasoline."

Corn: The Environmental Impact Statement.  Is it possible the environmentalists have been praying at the wrong altar?  Is it possible that corn — as a fuel — is a worse pollutant than (gasp!) oil?

The Rogue EPA's Shocking Disregard For The Law.  Under the 2007 law, the EPA was supposed to produce a report every three years on whether adding corn-based ethanol to our gasoline supply had any benefits — but the EPA didn't do it.  With its own inspector general saying it's breaking the law, the EPA — which did produce one report in 2011 — has now promised it will live up to the deal by producing a new study in 2017.  Hey, it's only seven years overdue!  But the EPA says the next one will come out in 2024 — another clear violation of the law.

The Rogue EPA's Shocking Disregard For The Law.  In a report released this week, the EPA's own inspector general claims the agency has not sufficiently studied the environmental impact of blending ethanol with gasoline, as required by law.  The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, signed into law by President Bush, required the increased production of biofuels, in particular ethanol, and mandated it to be blended with gasoline.  It was a bad law to begin with, one that unfortunately was bipartisan in nature.  As any mechanic worth his salt will tell you, ethanol use can do serious damage to car and truck engines.  More seriously, an Associated Press investigative report in 2013 found that corn-based ethanol was having far nastier impacts on the environment than predicted by the EPA and Energy Department.

Greens Reconsider Biofuels Mandate.  Environmentalists who once championed biofuels as a way to cut pollution are now turning against a U.S. program that puts renewable fuels in cars, citing higher-than-expected carbon dioxide emissions and reduced wildlife habitat.  More than a decade after conservationists helped persuade Congress to require adding corn-based ethanol and other biofuels to gasoline, some groups regret the resulting agricultural runoff in waterways and conversion of prairies to cropland — improving the odds that lawmakers might seek changes to the program next year.

EPA admits never studying effects of ethanol as required by law.  When Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 it introduced the current levels of controversial and problematic mandates for ethanol fuel blending which we've been wrestling with ever since.  But it also provided a mechanism to monitor the effects of the ethanol mandate on the environment and the economy which would be reported to Congress every three years.

Who pays for our renewable fuel policy?  America's wildlife.  In 2007, with the best of intentions, Congress passed the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) to reduce dependence on foreign oil, accelerate development of sustainable biofuels, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Nine years later, we are living with the severe unintended consequences:  large-scale loss of wildlife habitat (especially native grasslands) and degradation of water quality.  Simply put, the RFS has been devastating for wildlife.  This is a government-created crisis and it's time for reform.

Renewable Fuel Standard:  Stealing food to make unnecessary ethanol.  The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) — also known as the ethanol mandate — was passed by Congress in 2005 and expanded in 2007.  Regardless of market conditions, it required ever-increasing quantities of biofuel be blended into the nation's gasoline supply — though the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does have the flexibility to make some adjustments based on conditions, such as availability and infrastructure.  At the time of its passage, it was unfathomable that a decade later Americans would be consuming less gasoline, not more.  Instead of requiring a set, or even growing, percentage of ethanol be used, the law called for an increasing amount of gallons — which has created unforeseen complications.  Since the law was passed, due to increased fuel efficiency and a generally sluggish economy (meaning fewer people are driving to and from work every day) we've been using less gasoline, not more.  Requiring more and more ethanol in less and less gasoline is not what the original law intended.

5 environmentalist ideas that have spectacularly backfired.  [#3]  Ethanol:  Perhaps no environmentalist policy has backfired as vividly and completely as ethanol additives in gasoline.  Initially touted by environmentalists as a way to clean up tailpipe emissions, ethanol mandates have become a labyrinth of red tape strung up by an unholy alliance of food companies like Archer Daniels Midland and Midwestern politicians trying to buy votes from corn farmers.  The overall process of producing corn ethanol is actually worse for the environment than gasoline.  Cellulosic ethanol, another corn-based fuel additive that was presented as a cleaner alternative to ethanol, has also been found to be dirtier than gasoline.

EPA Just Declared War On Millions of Car Owners.  The EPA's proposal to increase the amount of ethanol that must be blended into gasoline is a trifecta of regulatory abuse.  It will do nothing for the environment, it will do nothing for energy security, and it could wreck millions of car engines.  The decision stems from a misbegotten 2007 energy bill signed by President Bush that requires ever-increasing amounts of ethanol to be included in gasoline.  Not an increasing percentage, but an actual amount.  The EPA's proposal would require refineries to blend in almost 19 billion gallons of ethanol and other "biofuels" by 2017, which is 700,000 gallons more than they do now.

EPA seeks to boost ethanol in fuel supply.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to increase the amount of ethanol and other biofuels in the nation's fuel supply.  But the volumes proposed Wednesday under the renewable fuel standard (RFS) still fall under targets written into the 2007 law that created the program.  That ended up angering both the ethanol industry, which wants more of its product to be mandated, and the oil industry, which wants the program rolled back.

Study Says Ethanol Harms Corn Counties.  Opponents of the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mandate, which requires a certain amount of biofuels to be mixed with gasoline annually, often decry the requirement's impact on prices and car engines, but a new study from researchers at Strata Policy (SP) and the Institute of Political Economy (IPE) at Utah State University suggests RFS also harms the very farmers the ethanol mandate was designed to help.  RFS was created by Congress as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  The ethanol mandate was touted by RFS supporters as a way to boost profits for farmers in corn-producing regions of the United States.  According to the study by SP and IPE, the result has been just the opposite.  The researchers say American taxpayers have spent $58 billion for direct ethanol subsidies alone since 1980, in addition to the costs added to the economy by the mandate.

Ted Cruz has a thoughtful conversation with an Iowa ethanol farmer.  It might be a bit of a stretch to say that Cruz completely won the man over, or converted him into a supporter — much is made of the gentleman's wish that Cruz find the votes he needs among Iowa farmers, but that might have just been polite best wishes, or even a dash of cynical humor.  Still, Cruz acquitted himself well during the encounter, spending some five minutes in patient, thoughtful conversation with someone who came to give him hell.  Cruz made informed arguments, demonstrated a clear mastery of his subject, turned a hostile encounter cordial, and kept the political balloon juice to a minimum.

Running on Empty.  Legally mandating that a certain percentage of fuel used be ethanol is a bad idea for several reasons:  First, mandating ethanol means more land must be plowed to grow corn for fuel.  The Department of Energy estimates that if corn ethanol replaced gasoline completely, we'd need to turn all cropland to corn — plus 20 percent more land on top of that.  Second, requiring ethanol fuel raises the price of corn — bad news for consumers who must pay more for food.  Third, although ethanol's supporters claim burning corn is "better for the environment," that's not true.  Once you add the emissions from growing, shipping and processing the corn, ethanol creates more pollution than oil.  Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Clean Air Task Force now oppose its use.  Finally, because corn is grown in America, promoters said ethanol would make us more energy independent.  Even if the "independence" argument were valid, fracking accomplishes much more.  (Anyway, it isn't a valid argument.  Trade with Mexico and Canada is just fine.  We don't need total independence.)

Ted Cruz v. King Corn — one righteous fight.  Ted Cruz has dared to provoke the ire of one of the most ruthless, vengeful political forces on the planet.  And it's not Donald Trump.  The Texas senator has crossed the ethanol industry in Iowa, which is a little like getting on the wrong side of the Catholic Church in Vatican City.  Cruz's core theme is fighting the "Washington cartel," which would be a lot easier if its tentacles didn't extend all the way into the state crucial to Cruz's presidential hopes.

Trump, Cruz, Clinton, Carson, Paul, Christie and the ethanol boondoggle.  Cars run on fuel.  Politicians run on votes, and they'll do almost anything to get them.  That includes supporting mandates that force us to use ethanol, a fuel made from corn that Iowa farmers grow.  They support ethanol because Iowa is the first state to vote on presidential candidates.  Candidates want to look strong at the start of the race, so every four years they become enthusiastic ethanol supporters.  Even those who claim they believe in markets pander to Iowa's special interests.  Donald Trump, who doesn't seem to have a consistent political philosophy aside from bashing critics and foreigners, now has joined the ethanol-praising club.

Cruz Right, Trump Wrong on Ethanol.  It has been said that if we were getting so-called "alternative" energy from potatoes instead of corn, the first primary/caucus would be held in Idaho instead of Iowa.  As it is, ethanol from corn in the first state where votes are actually cast in a presidential election has led to endless political pandering in support of a fuel that consumes more energy than it provides, is difficult to transport, reduces car mileage, can damage auto enegines, and damages the environment.  Presidential contender Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican from Texas, chose not to pander Thursday night [1/28/2016] in the Iowa debate, drawing the obvious conclusion that if ethanol were so cost-effective and beneficial, its use would not have to be mandated.

A Soft Civil War.  One wag whose name I've unfortunately forgotten indicated Iowa should get the first primary in the nation or ethanol subsidies, but not both.  The point is well taken.  With the exception of only Cruz to my knowledge, candidates desiring an early win and momentum promise to keep the subsidies going.

Ethanol is the Anchor Baby of our Economic System.  Energy is the lifeblood of a free economy.  Much like immigration stands at the nexus of our culture, security and fiscal solvency, energy stands at the nexus of the bread and butter economic issues — jobs, income, and cost of living.  Rather than allowing Americans to use our freedom to purchase the best form of fuel, the Washington cartel ethanol lobbyists have violated our sovereignty as individual consumers and used the boot of government to mandate that we only purchase fuel blended with their ineffective product.

Do Emotions Trump Facts?  With the Iowa caucuses coming up, it is easy to understand why Iowa governor Terry Branstad is slamming Trump's chief rival, Senator Ted Cruz, who has opposed massive government subsidies to ethanol, which have dumped tons of taxpayer money on Iowa for growing corn.  Iowa's Senator Charles Grassley has come right out and said that is why he opposes Senator Cruz.  Former Senator Bob Dole, an establishment Republican if ever there was one, has joined the attacks on Ted Cruz, on grounds that Senator Cruz is disliked by other politicians.

Levin Explains Trump's Crony-Capitalist Iowa Ethanol Pander.  Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin explained why Donald Trump, the supposed anti-establishment candidate, is siding with the establishment on the ethanol mandate.  It has everything to do with trying to pander for votes.  [Audio clip.]

Crony Iowa Governor Hates Ted Cruz Because His Family Makes Big Money Off Ethanol.  The Governor of Iowa wants Ted Cruz defeated.  He says Iowans would be hurt by Ted Cruz were he to get elected.  Why?  Cruz opposes the ethanol renewable fuel standard and wants to phase it out.  It turns out that Branstad's son is paid by the ethanol lobby and has been trailing candidates demanding they support ethanol.

What has Donald Trump Done for Sarah Palin?  Meaning, what has Trump done to promote the values that Palin's supporters have been advocating for the past eight years? [...] The former Alaskan governor also promised Trump would stand up to "special interests" if he becomes president.  Well, wouldn't now be a wonderful time for Trump to start?  There is only one special interest in Iowa, where Trump and Palin rallied together last night:  ethanol.  Instead of pledging to put an end to the federal subsidies and the mandates controlling that industry, Trump has blasted his rival Ted Cruz for having the audacity to do just that.  Trump isn't going to stop the influence of special interests; he is the special interest.

Trump calls for higher ethanol mandate.  Donald Trump said Tuesday [1/19/2015] that federal regulators should increase the amount of ethanol blended into the nation's gasoline supply.  Speaking at an event hosted by the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, Trump, a real estate mogul and the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ought to follow the ethanol volumes Congress set in 2007.

A Profile In Courage In Iowa: Cruz Won't Bow To Ethanol Lobby.  Ted Cruz is leading the Republican polls in the Hawkeye State despite his opposition to the federal mandate requiring gasoline to be blended with 10% ethanol.  He considers the mandate to be a form of corporate welfare — which it is.  The Agriculture Department program that requires the blending is known as E10.  The industry is now lobbying for a 15% mandate, or E15.  At that level, ethanol could seriously damage car engines while raising costs at the gas pump.  Recent studies have also questioned whether there's any environmental benefit to ethanol, and even many green groups oppose forcing people to put corn in their tank.

How Congress Messed Up Ethanol.  The year was 2007.  America was importing more than half its oil.  President George W. Bush jumped aboard the bandwagon, saying that America was "addicted to oil" and promised to make fuel from switchgrass.  Congress responded with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which was mainly aimed at increasing the use of biofuels.  At the time, U.S. consumption of biofuels — almost all ethanol — was 4.7 billion gallons.  The law mandated that this consumption should rise gradually to 36 billion gallons by 2022.  Moreover, over 21 billion gallons were to come from non-cornstarch products — sugar, biodiesel or cellulose, fuels that barely existed at the time.  This was indeed an ambitious goal.  The amount of corn ethanol was limited by the 10 percent "blend wall," whereby refiners and automakers argue that if ethanol exceeds 10 percent of the gasoline mix it begins to damage engines by eroding aluminum parts in the fuel chain.  Back in 2007 when ethanol production was less than 1 percent of gasoline consumption this, didn't seem to make much difference.  But as farmers converted their land to corn production and output rose, it began to be a problem.

Limbaugh, Levin weigh in on Trump's flawed ethanol stance.  Last week I brought up the sticky question of how King Corn was investing big dollars in going after Ted Cruz over his rejection of government subsidies for ethanol and the Renewable Fuel Standard and the fact that Donald Trump had taken a very different position on the subject.  In fact, he not only seemed to come out in favor of ethanol subsidies, but used that as a line of attack against Ted Cruz.  (One of the only candidates to consistently be on the right, conservative side of this question.)  Well, I wasn't the only one to notice this.

EPA boosts amount of ethanol in gasoline supply.  The Obama administration is boosting the amount of corn-based ethanol and other renewable fuels in the U.S. gasoline supply despite sustained opposition by an unusual alliance of oil companies, environmentalists and some GOP presidential candidates.  The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday [11/30/2015] issued a final rule designed to increase production of ethanol to be blended with gasoline through 2016, a decision that could reverberate in Iowa's crucial presidential caucuses.

Obama's EPA ignores congressional mandate for ethanol in gasoline.  The Obama administration backed off its so-called ethanol mandate Monday, dealing a blow to President Obama's promise of a green energy revolution just as he and other world leaders opened a new round of historic climate change talks in Paris.  The Environmental Protection Agency's latest round of ethanol mandates — known as the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and initiated during President George W. Bush's time in office — came under fire from all sides, with proponents of ethanol blending saying the rules fall far short of what the nation needs to continue cutting greenhouse gas emissions and from critics who say the entire system is flawed and must be scrapped.

Last Call for Ethanol.  A federal program, once launched, is impossible to kill.  It doesn't matter if the scheme wastes money.  It doesn't matter if the program doesn't work.  It doesn't even matter if the program does the very opposite of what it is supposed to do.  Every government program enters the world with an army of fairy godmothers prepared to fend off any effort to cut the cord.  Hence, the staying power of ethanol.

Ethanol leaks into Mississippi River after train derailment.  Five tanker cars of a BNSF Railway freight train that derailed Saturday [11/7/2015] in western Wisconsin were leaking ethanol into the Mississippi River, the railroad said.

Ethanol Study Concludes the EPA's Biofuel Standard Created 'More Problems Than Solutions'.  On the 10-year anniversary of the federal Renewable Fuel Standard, a team of researchers released a study that concludes the policy created "more problems than solutions."  The report issued last week — "10-Year Review of the Renewable Fuels Standard" — by Drs. Daniel De La Torre Ugarte and Burton English at the University of Tennessee's Institute of Agriculture takes a look at the environmental, economic and industry effects of the RFS.

Green energy company fights for life after getting billions from feds.  Abengoa, a renewable energy multinational company headquartered in Spain, has been a favorite of the Obama administration in getting federal tax money for clean energy projects.  Since 2009, Abengoa and its subsidiaries, according to estimates, have received $2.9 billion in grants and loan guarantees through the Department of Energy to undertake solar projects in California and Arizona — as well as the construction of a cellulosic ethanol plant in Kansas.

Ethanol And Motorcycles.  Pardon the bureaucrat speak, but on May 29 the Environmental Protection Agency:  "announced proposed volume requirements under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016, and also proposed volume requirements for biomass-based diesel for 2017.  The proposal would boost renewable fuel production and provide for ambitious yet responsible growth over multiple years, supporting future expansion of the biofuels industry."  That's how your government speaks to you; Like they are Foghorn Leghorn and your name is "Boy."

Corn Ethanol Is Worse Than Keystone.  For years, environmental activists have opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming that development of Canada's oil sands will be "game over for the climate."  But if those same activists are sincere about climate change, why aren't they getting arrested outside the White House to protest the use of corn ethanol?  That's a pertinent question, given a new analysis from the Environmental Working Group, which finds that corn ethanol produces more carbon dioxide than Keystone XL would — presuming, of course, that the pipeline ever gets built.  Making the issue even more relevant, last Friday, the EPA outlined new requirements for the minimum amounts of ethanol that retailers must blend into their gasoline.

Ben Carson: Let's slash Big Oil to pay for ethanol.  Well this is certainly disappointing. [...] Newly announced presidential contender Ben Carson was out talking to the Cornhuskers and the inevitable subjects of ethanol, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and subsidies for King Corn came up.  The answer from the esteemed neurosurgeon was dismaying even compared to some of the other pandering we've seen previously.

The Editor says...
Doctor Carson is apparently far smarter and nicer than almost any other politician, but he's not going to be the President of the United States due to political inexperience.  But even so, this pandering to the ethanol lobby would a deal breaker for any Republican candidate.

Corn, Scorn and Policy Porn.  Imagine a government energy program that is such a disaster that the Environmental Working Group and the American Petroleum Institute both oppose it.  The anti-poverty group ActionAid USA wants to get rid of it, as does the pro-business Competitive Enterprise Institute.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wants to end it.  So does Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.  They're both sponsors of the Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act of 2015.  Feinstein pans the ethanol mandate as "both unwise and unworkable."

GOP presidential hopefuls split over federal biofuels mandate.  Free market conservatism collided with farm-state jockeying this weekend in Iowa, where several GOP presidential hopefuls said they support the federal fuel mandate that has boosted Iowa's all-important corn market — arguably at the expense of consumers' wallets and engines.  Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Lindsey Graham all told a Saturday [2/7/2015] gathering in Des Moines that they support the federal Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, that has required corn-based ethanol to be blended into almost every gallon of gasoline sold in the U.S.

If Walker can't stand up to Iowans, how can he stand up to the Islamic State?  Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., was speaking to Iowa farmers over the weekend and, as the Washington Examiner's Rebecca Berg reported, he shifted his position on ending the mandate that requires gasoline to be blended with ethanol.  Though he previously indicated opposition to the mandate, now visiting Iowa as a likely presidential candidate, Walker said, "It's something I'm willing to go forward on, continuing the Renewable Fuel Standard."  The fact that he later floated the possibility of phasing it out didn't help the damage that was done to his reputation.  The ethanol mandate has little rationale beyond being a big government regulatory handout to corn farmers, many of whom happen to reside in a state with the first presidential nominating contest.

Ethanol: The GOP-Supported Rip-Off.  Can someone explain why the "party of limited government" continues, with a straight face, to support ethanol?  Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa says about the heavily subsided product, "Everything about ethanol is good, good, good."

How biofuels contribute to the food crisis.  Each year, the world demands more grain, and this year the world's farms will not produce it.  World food prices have surged above the food crisis levels of 2008. [...] Demand for biofuels is almost doubling the challenge of producing more food.  Since 2004, for every additional ton of grain needed to feed a growing world population, rising government requirements for ethanol from grain have demanded a matching ton.  Brazil's reliance on sugar ethanol and Europe's on biodiesel have comparably increased growth rates in the demand for sugar and driven up demand for vegetable oil.

Biofuel emissions "worse than fossil fuels" — report.  Biofuels, widely seen as the green way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, may in some cases be worse for the climate than fossil fuels, a report says.  Not only will they cost motorists more than ordinary petrol and diesel and increase fuel consumption:  they will also make food more expensive. [...] Rob Bailey, the author of the report, entitled The Trouble with Biofuels, says:  "Current biofuels are at best an expensive way of reducing emissions.  "At worst they produce more emissions than the fossil fuels they replace and contribute to high and unstable food prices.  Policymaking needs to catch up with the evidence base."

Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use.  OK, can we please stop pretending biofuel made from corn is helping the planet and the environment?  The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released two of its Working Group reports at the end of last month (WGI and WGIII), and their short discussion of biofuels has ignited a fierce debate as to whether they're of any environmental benefit at all.

Ethanol policy reform — the rare place where environmentalists and energy advocates agree.  For the past two years, the EPA has failed to meet the statutory deadline under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), requiring the agency to tell refiners how much ethanol to blend into the nation's motor fuels.  In November 2013, the EPA did make an attempt to announce the proposed 2014 blend levels — which by then were already months past the legally mandated deadline.  The EPA surprised and pleased the RFS opponents when it utilized its authority to adjust the mandate and took market conditions into consideration.  The EPA set the proposed 2014 standard to a level lower than 2013's, even though the law requires increasing amounts.  Ethanol producers, who were expecting the usual uptick, loudly opposed the reduction.  They made so much noise, the EPA agreed to reconsider.  To date, the 2014 standards have not yet been announced.

Time to Shuck the Big Corn Giveaway.  By most reasonable measures, America's corn farmers have had a fantastic year.  Their 14-billion-bushel harvest represents the largest yearly haul of any crop by any single country in world history.  Corn farmers are the last people who should need your tax money, but that's exactly what they're getting.

Methanol — the Fuel in Waiting.  It's the fuel that would make the best and most convenient substitute for gasoline in automobiles and small trucks. It has about two-thirds the energy value of gasoline, but its high octane rating pushes this up above 70 percent.  It is a liquid at room temperature and therefore would fit into our current gasoline infrastructure — as opposed to compressed natural gas or electric vehicles, which require a whole new delivery system.  It is also much less cumbersome than corn ethanol, which now requires nearly half the annual corn crop produced in the U.S. to provide only 3 percent of our energy needs.  Methanol made from natural gas would now sell for about $1 less per gallon than gasoline.  Methanol can also be made from food waste, municipal garbage and just about any other organic source.

Study Links Ethanol to Higher Air Pollution.  Ethanol may be increasing air pollution in Brazil, scientists report in a peer-reviewed study.  The study may have public policy implications in the United States, where federal law requires the transportation fuel mix to contain approximately 10 percent ethanol.  Sugar cane-based ethanol, which is heavily subsidized by the Brazilian government, powers many of the cars in Brazil.  However, a recent study of Sao Paulo air conditions found ethanol-powered vehicles may be linked to the city's smog problem.  When higher ethanol prices induced drivers to switch from ethanol to gasoline, the city's smog levels declined, scientists found.

Ethanol is all about politics, not the environment.
An ethanol surprise in Iowa?  [Scroll down]  The real story is that desperate Democrats are doing everything in their power in Iowa and other states to keep the U.S. Senate under their control.  With active cronyism between ethanol industry representatives and the White House, an October Surprise to keep Iowa in the blue column is rumored.  This surprise would be an increase in the amount of ethanol required to be blended into gasoline this year.  And it could be just the ticket to get Iowa ethanol producers and corn farmers, who are harvesting a record-breaking crop, solidly behind the Democratic candidate.

The clean fuels' program is a hidden tax on gas.  Many politicians on the West Coast have fallen in love with untested policies and programs they say will help solve global warming.  Many of these policies are mind-bogglingly complicated.  What, after all, is a low carbon fuel standard (LCFS), or clean fuels program?  And how exactly do programs like "cap and trade" work?  And, perhaps most importantly, how do these policies impact you, the consumer?  Here's the dirty little secret the politicians don't want to talk about:  All of these policies are going to make it more costly to produce gasoline and diesel.

EPA faces '14 accusations on ethanol.  Groups like the American Petroleum Institute (API) always want the mandate to be lowered to increase the amount of crude oil in the supply, while some green groups also want to abolish the mandate, but for other reasons.  The Environmental Working Group, for instance, argues that the Renewable Fuel Standard encourages farmers to cut down more trees so they have more fields to grow corn — a process that may actual use more energy and emit more greenhouse gases than traditional fuels.  But the National Corn Growers Association and other pro-ethanol groups want the mandate to be raised.

http://heartland.org/media-library/QPR/QPR-2014-1Q-web.pdf.  Ethanol and other biofuels remain substantially more expensive than gasoline despite the promises of renewable fuels advocates.  Ethanol delivers fewer miles per dollar while being more damaging to fuel systems and auto parts than gasoline.  Nevertheless, the federal government and many state governments heavily subsidize ethanol and other biofuels and require consumers to purchase billions of gallons of these expensive products.

Study Links Ethanol to Higher Air Pollution.  Sugar cane-based ethanol, which is heavily subsidized by the Brazilian government, powers many of the cars in Brazil.  However, a recent study of Sao Paulo air conditions found ethanol-powered vehicles may be linked to the city's smog problem.  When higher ethanol prices induced drivers to switch from ethanol to gasoline, the city's smog levels declined, scientists found.  Approximately 40 percent of automobiles in Sao Paolo run on either gasoline or government-subsidized ethanol.  When the percentage of those flexible-fuel vehicles using solely gasoline rose from 14 percent to 76 percent, ozone pollution dropped by 20 percent, the researchers reported.

Ethanol from Corn Residue Increases CO2 Emissions.  Cellulosic ethanol made from corn residue emits more carbon dioxide than gasoline, according to a newly published, federally funded peer-reviewed study.  The findings are a severe blow to the biofuel industry, as fuels must reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent relative to conventional gasoline to qualify as a renewable fuel for federal subsidy programs.

Water shortages leading right back to corn and ethanol.  The central plains have seen some relief this spring with bands of heavy rains moving through, but the 2014 season has been the exception rather than the norm.  The 2012-2013 drought season saw more and more people having trouble accessing potable ground water, or even sufficient moisture for agriculture.  It's long been known that this problem is exacerbated by expanding corn production, driven by a need to feed the government mandated ethanol market.  But a recent study from an unusual source sheds some new light on this situation.

Climate Change Induced Corn-mageddon?  According to NOAA's own data, long-term drought has all but disappeared in the U.S. corn belt, and it is only getting wetter and wetter over time.  And yes, that trend towards massively anti-drought conditions in the corn belt is also massively statistically significant.  We find the exact same highly statistically significant trends towards far less drought in the corn belt since the late 1800s when we look at the 48-month, 36-month, 24-month, annual, May-October, or summertime PDSI.  It is absurd to suggest that droughts in the American corn belt are becoming more frequent or severe due to climate change.  The exact opposite is taking place.

Ethanol Nonsense.  2004 was a record year for U.S. production of both corn and soybeans.  If the entire record corn crop was converted to ethanol and the entire soybean crop was converted to biodiesel fuel, these two alternative fuels would equal only 12 days of U.S. petroleum consumption!

The Plight of the Monarch Butterflies.  The milkweed plant likes dry and sunny places the like of which you used to find along hedge rows, farm fields, countryside road ways, meadows and hills with poor soil.  The "corn for fuel," i.e. the "bio-ethanol" mandate of the U.S. has changed all that.  It's not just bad for the monarchs, it's bad all around, even for your car engine.  In order to grow the large additional quantities of corn required to add (after conversion to ethanol) to common gasoline, farmers started to plow under the very last scrap of land not previously used for agricultural production.  With that, the milkweed and the monarchs are doomed.

A World Turning Against Biofuels.  The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has suddenly reversed its support for biofuels.  The panel now admits growing crops for fuel "poses risks to ecosystems and biodiversity."

Solving the Midwest Ethanol Problem.  The roots of the ethanol industry's current problems go back to 1978, when the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set the maximum legal limit of ethanol in motor gasoline at 10 percent ethanol.  Three decades later the RFS deemed that increasing amounts of ethanol had to be blended into the gasoline supply, but because US gasoline consumption has been falling, the 10 percent limit of ethanol in the gasoline supply was reached.  As the gasoline pool was approaching that limit — commonly referred to as the "blend wall" — the ethanol lobby requested that the EPA allow 15 percent ethanol blends.

A Post-Mortem of Big Corn's December Defeat.  Last November, America's ethanol policy got a mite smarter.  The EPA walked back on some of the mandates it had in place for fuel refiners to blend in supposedly "green" ethanol, part of the country's Renewable Fuel Standard.  Since then, the ethanol lobby, affectionately (or not) called "Big Corn," has been railing against the decision as one coerced by the far more insidious-sounding "Big Oil" lobby.  But as Reuters reports in an in-depth look back on the process, this was more complicated than just a tug of war between two special interest giants.

New Study: Ethanol is Bad for Health and Environment.  A new study appearing in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science and Technology April 18 finds ethanol a health hazard that would likely increase the number of respiratory-related deaths and hospitalizations.  Ethanol is touted as a "green" alternative to gasoline, but the author of the study, Mark Jacobson, says, "It's not green in terms of air pollution." Jacobson is a civil and environmental engineering professor at Stanford University, who studied atmospheric conditions in 2020 if all vehicles ran on ethanol.

Evidence Piles UP Against Ethanol.  Ever since the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, ethanol has been touted as a substitute for gasoline that would reduce our dependence on imports of foreign oil.  But ethanol was found to be a net energy loser.  It requires more energy to produce than you can get from burning the ethanol.  Two studies by panels of the U.S. Dept. of Energy in 1980 and 1981 came to this conclusion.  Those studies were reviewed by 26 independent scientific experts, who unanimously agreed with their findings.  Many other studies since produced the same result.

Ozone Levels Drop 20 Percent With Switch From Ethanol To Gasoline.  A Northwestern University study by an economist and a chemist reports that when fuel prices drove residents of São Paulo, Brazil, to mostly switch from ethanol to gasoline in their flexible-fuel vehicles, local ozone levels dropped 20 percent.  At the same time, nitric oxide and carbon monoxide concentrations tended to go up.  The four-year study is the first real-world trial looking at the effects of human behavior at the pump on urban air pollution.  This empirical analysis of atmospheric pollutants, traffic congestion, consumer choice of fuel and meteorological conditions provides an important tool for studying other large cities, such as Chicago, New York, London and Beijing.  Previous studies mainly have consisted of computer simulations of atmospheric chemical reactions based on tailpipe emissions studies.

The Ethanol Disaster.  America's ethanol requirement destroys the environment, damages car engines, increases gas prices, and contributes to the starvation of the global poor.  It's an unmitigated disaster on nearly every level.  Start with the environment.  After all, when the renewable fuel standard (RFS), which since 2005 has set forth a minimum annual volume of renewable fuels nationwide, was first set, one of the primary arguments for mandating ethanol use was that it was a greener, more environmentally friendly source of fuel that released fewer greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.  This turns out to be complete hogwash.  Researchers have known for years that, when the entire production process is taken into account, most supposedly green biofuels actually emit more greenhouse gasses than traditional fuels.

Fuels made from corn actually worse than gasoline, study says.  According to a new study, commissioned by the federal government, says that biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are actually worse than gasoline — when it comes to global warming in the short term.

Partners in Ethanol Crime.  Ethanol is losing political steam on the left and right, but the fuel retains a powerful patron in the Environmental Protection Agency. On Wednesday the EPA retroactively reduced the 2013 gasoline-blending mandate for cellulosic ethanol to 810,185 gallons from six million. If that sounds like a big cut, 810,185 gallons is precisely every last drop the industry managed to produce. The 2014 mandate is nonetheless pegged at a preposterous 17 million gallons. An even better measure of the EPA's tie-up with the ethanol lobby is the protracted delay of rules meant to keep criminals out of the alternative fuels markets. Ethanol has always been a scam on taxpayers but the mandate has proved to be an invitation for mass fraud.

It's Final — Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use.  Can we please stop pretending biofuel made from corn is helping the planet and the environment?  The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released two of its Working Group reports at the end of last month, and their short discussion of biofuels has ignited a fierce debate as to whether they're of any environmental benefit at all.

Automakers continue to quietly void warranties if you use E-15 gas.  It seems to be a growing trend that motorists are shopping around for gas stations which offer ethanol free gas, even if they have to pay a bit more per gallon to get it.  Distributors are noticing, and more and more stations are featuring this option.

Get the feds out of our gas tanks.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed reducing the amount of ethanol and other biofuels that must be mixed into the nation's fuel supply.  Fuel blenders would be required to use 15.21 billion gallons of biofuel in 2014, down from 16.55 billion gallons last year.  That's a good sign that the EPA finally recognizes the federal mandate for ethanol is creating economic distortions.  But the mandate should be cut much more significantly, with the ultimate goal that it be eliminated.

EPA admits the ethanol mandate has become unrealistic.  A top Environmental Protection Agency official admitted in front of Congress that the federal ethanol blending mandate has put undue requirements on oil companies.  "We're recognizing that the blend wall has been reached," Christopher Grundler, head of the EPA's transportation and air office, told senators in a hearing on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).  "Reaching the blend wall clearly presents constraints to using higher ethanol quantities because of the infrastructure and other market limitations," Grundler said.

U.S. Senators introduce bill to eliminate corn ethanol mandate.  A group of 10 U.S. Senators introduced a bipartisan bill on Thursday [12/12/2013] to eliminate the corn ethanol mandate, arguing that current law raises the cost of food and animal feed and damages the environment.

Price of Chicken Reaches All-Time High in U.S..  The price for fresh whole chickens hit its all-time high in the United States in October, according to data released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  In January 1980, when BLS started tracking the price of this commodity, fresh whole chickens cost $0.69 per pound.  By this October 2003, fresh whole chickens cost $1.54 per pound.

The Editor says...
What is the primary ingredient in chicken feed?  Corn.

Ethanol takes policy blow from the Environmental Protection Agency.  Once touted as a climate-friendly renewable alternative to foreign oil, the corn-based liquid ethanol has been exposed as an environmental and economic mistake.  Lured by federal subsidies, Midwestern farmers have devoted millions of acres to corn that might otherwise have been devoted to soil conservation or feed-grain production.

Ethanol Is Net Energy Loser.  In his State of the Union speech, President Bush called for increasing ethanol as a way of reducing petroleum consumption and dependence on foreign oil.  It will do just the opposite.  Many studies over the years have concluded that it takes more energy for growing the corn (for farm machinery, pesticides, fertilizers) and distilling the alcohol than you can get from burning the ethanol that is produced.

In a first, EPA cuts ethanol standard.  In a move likely to anger corn farmers and their congressional representatives, the Obama administration Friday [11/15/2013] proposed the first-ever cut in the amount of corn-based ethanol and other biofuels that must be mixed into the nation's gasoline, with the Environmental Protection Agency concluding that the mandate set by Congress just six years ago is proving difficult and perhaps impossible for gas producers to meet.  The move could spark a fight from corn growers and those who have argued the ethanol mix was key to reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil suppliers.

EPA proposes reducing biofuel mandate.  The Obama administration on Friday [11/15/2013] proposed to reduce the amount of ethanol in the nation's fuel supply for the first time, acknowledging that the biofuel law championed by both parties in 2007 is not working as well as expected.

AP: Obama admin's corn-ethanol policies are pretty terrible for the environment.  As promised, the Associated Press has recently fallen out of favor with Big Ethanol (tragedy strikes!) over their big report released today that finally, earnestly picks up on what opponents of the Renewable Fuel Standard and other biofuels subsidies have been insisting for ages now:  That corn ethanol is not the helpful climate-change panacea that its advocates are incessantly, deliberately misrepresenting it as, and in fact, on net evaluation, the government's wildly political biofuels push has brought about more long-term environmental harm than good.

Prairies Vanish in the US Push For Green Energy.  A policy intended to reduce global warming is encouraging a farming practice that actually could worsen it.

The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push.  [T]he ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today.

Millions of Acres of Conservation Land Destroyed Due to Ethanol.  Congress passed a law requiring oil companies to blend billions of gallons of ethanol into gasoline in 2007.  Last year farmers planted 15 million more acres of corn in 2012 than it had before the mandate.  In 2010, fuel became the number one use of corn in America.

Federal Ethanol Policy: Bad for the Planet, Good for Lobbyists.  The federal government's push for greater ethanol production, carried out in the name of saving the planet, has done great harm to the environment. [...] [W]hen EPA models indicated that the ethanol mandate would not make fuel green enough to satisfy the law, the agency was pressured into rigging the input assumptions to produce the desired results.  By assuming a huge increase in crop yields (and thus fewer new acres plowed) but a very small increase in corn prices, the EPA was able to claim that ethanol-blended gasoline would produce 21 percent fewer carbon dioxide emissions than standard gasoline, beating the law's emissions-reduction target by just one percentage point.  Those rigged assumptions turned out to be dead wrong.

Industry Takes Aim at AP Ethanol Investigation.  A new Associated Press investigation, which found that ethanol hasn't lived up to some of the government's clean-energy promises, is drawing a fierce response from the ethanol industry.

AAA urges EPA to reduce vehicle ethanol mandates.  AAA, the motor club that represents 53 million drivers, on Monday urged the Environmental Protection Agency to lower the amount of ethanol required to be blended into gasoline for 2014.  The group said more realistic targets in the Renewable Fuels Standard — approved by Congress in 2007 — "would protect drivers by preventing a possible surge in gas prices or the increased use of potentially damaging E15 gasoline."  "It is just not possible to blend the amount of ethanol required by current law given recent declines in fuel consumption, and it is time for public policy to acknowledge this reality," said Bob Darbelnet, president and CEO of AAA.

Big Ethanol's response to EPA's possible RFS-rollback: Panic..  In what would be a pretty historical retreat, leaked draft documents last week revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency might actually considering reducing their ethanol-blending requirements for the country's refiners through the Renewable Fuel Standard as the industry has grown increasingly vocal about the inherent problems of hitting the "blend wall."

Liberal Dem: EPA biofuel program 'a flop'.  The federal requirement for gas refiners to mix biofuel in with conventional gasoline is a "flop," according to Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and should be eliminated.  Welch said that the renewable fuel standard, administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), drives up the cost of corn, which ends up raising prices for dairy farmers in his state as well as other livestock producers.  Plus, he said, the amount of energy required to produce the biofuel ends up hurting the environment.  "It's been a flop, and the amount of energy that goes into producing a gallon of ethanol is a lot.  Twenty-eight gallons of water to produce a gallon of gas, 170 gallons, I guess, to produce a gallon of ethanol," he said.

The Renewable Fuel Standard Is Another Taxpayer-Funded Bailout.  The Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) mandates an ever-increasing floor of ethanol be mixed with gasoline.  The bill, which was expanded under President Obama, ensures a baseline level of demand for ethanol, distorting the market and sending the price of corn substantially higher.  That's because gasoline refiners have to purchase ethanol, regardless of the price.  So, corn prices tripled, which has factored its way into the prices of other agriculture products.

Wall Street Messes Up the EPA's Sandbox.  [Scroll down]  America's gasoline consumption has declined over the last six years.  Improvements in gas mileage — mostly impelled by a higher plateau for gas prices — have helped.  This year we are projected to consume only 134 billion gallons, down 6 percent from 2007.  But the ethanol mandate has remained at 13.8 billion gallons.  Consuming that much will push us over the 10 percent "blend wall" where ethanol begins to harm car engines.  Car manufacturers will not honor warrantees on cars that are fueled with more than 10 percent ethanol.  Consequently, refiners are stuck with a mandate for buying more ethanol than they use.  But never fear — the EPA had already created a mechanism for greasing the market.

The Ethanol Debacle.  The government mandated blend of ethanol in every gallon of gasoline is a full-fledged disaster and neither Congress, nor the Environmental Protection Agency shows any indication of either repealing or abandoning it.

Put a Corn Cob in Your Tank.  A strong candidate for the most expensive policy blunder of recent years would have to be the mandate to blend corn ethanol and other biofuels into the nation's gasoline supply.  This month even the Environmental Protection Agency essentially acknowledged that the program is increasingly unworkable and costly to consumers.  The EPA just won't do much to fix it.

High Gasoline Prices and RINs.  By now, most people realize that putting corn, a food, into the gas tank is immoral.  It's also a terrible economic policy that steals money from consumers — money that could be used to pay every day expenses or be used for investment.  The law requires refineries to blend cellulosic ethanol into gasoline, or pay a penalty.  But cellulosic ethanol doesn't exist so penalties are paid that refiners must recover from their customers — you and me.

Ethanol industry has EPA as ally in battle against big oil.  The 2005 Republican-passed energy bill created the RFS, known as the "ethanol mandate," and the 2007 Democrat-passed energy bill expanded it.  Under the law, oil refiners must purchase a set quantity of ethanol every year.  Thanks largely to cars' improving fuel efficiency, gasoline consumption has fallen steadily over the past few years, so refiners aren't selling enough gasoline to blend with the ethanol.  Under the complicated structure of the ethanol mandate, this will drive up costs for refiners, and thus drive up the price of gasoline.

Imaginary optimism.  Only in Washington would it take eight months to come up with a production quota for an imaginary product.  The Environmental Protection Agency, which is all too real, announced this week the latest renewable-fuel standards, which were due in January.  Now the oil companies must produce 6 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol, down from last year's target of 11 million.  That's still 6 million gallons too many, because cellulosic ethanol exists only in the fertile imagination of green fanatics.

Washington's Latest Special Favor.  [Scroll down]  This matters because for refineries to stuff ballooning amounts of ethanol into a static gas pool, they must blend it at levels of more than 10%.  Since the nation's auto makers have declared they will void the warranties of cars using gas with more than 10% ethanol, refineries face lawsuits.  Most have instead turned to buying federal renewable "credits" to make up for the ethanol they don't blend.  As demand for these credits skyrockets, so has the price — jumping from a few pennies a gallon last year to close to $1 a gallon today.  Oil refiner Valero has said the credits could raise its cost by a stunning $750 million this year, a hit that will be passed on to consumers.

Court Rules Indiana Ethanol Plants Exceeded Pollution Limits.  Federal pollution laws limit chemical process plants to 100 tons of air pollutants each year.  The ethanol plants in question, owned by Poet Biorefining, emitted substantially more than 100 tons of pollution each year.  Indiana Department of Environmental Management (DEM) officials reclassified the ethanol plants to avoid the definition of a chemical process plant, allowing the ethanol plants to emit more than double the air pollutants applicable to chemical process plants.

Ethanol is Insane, and Politicians Outside the Beltway Are Finally Fighting It.  The fact that most ethanol is made from corn means that an increase in the ethanol content of gas could create, or exacerbate, a variety of problems, like higher food prices and elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. [...] But while federal support for ethanol appears to be as unstoppable as it is misguided, some individual states have shown the kind of backbone that could lead us toward a smarter energy policy.

Ethanol Harms the Economy and the Environment.  Praised as a policy that would reduce dependence on oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires refineries to blend ethanol into gasoline, has been fraught with unintended consequences [...]

Ethanol Use Creates a Spike in Global Food Prices.  At the turn of the 21st century, biofuels appeared to be a solution to mounting concerns over greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, skyrocketing fuel prices and dependence on foreign energy.  When Congress passed the Energy Policy Act in 2005 with a renewable fuel standard provision mandating that producers add ethanol to gasoline, it is unlikely that lawmakers thought the act would increase hunger and social unrest in the world's poorest countries.  However, unintended consequences frequently accompany even the most well-intentioned policies [...]

Supreme Court could consider suit to block sales of high-ethanol gas blend.  The higher ethanol blend is currently sold in just fewer than two dozen stations in the Midwest, but could spread to other regions as the Obama administration considers whether to require more ethanol in gasoline.

Ethanol Use Creates a Spike in Global Food Prices.  When Congress passed the Energy Policy Act (EP Act) in 2005 with a renewable fuel standard (RFS) provision mandating that producers add ethanol to gasoline, it is unlikely that lawmakers thought the act would increase hunger and social unrest in the world's poorest countries.  However, unintended consequences frequently accompany even the most well-intentioned policies [...]

Story Ideas for a Press Turning Against Obama.  An astonishing 45 percent of our corn crop now goes into gas tanks to replace 4 percent of our oil.  This massive diversion of crops has driven up food prices around the world, causing food riots in 2008 and toppling the government of Haiti.  The UN Food and Agriculture Organization regularly calls biofuels "a crime against humanity."

Is it time to end ethanol vehicle fuel mandates?  Last week, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and other lawmakers introduced legislation in the House of Representatives calling for major changes in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).  The RFS is the reason why most US automobile fuel contains ten percent ethanol.

Cost-saving measure to upgrade ethanol to butanol — a better alternative to gasoline.  Scientists have reported a discovery that could speed an emerging effort to replace ethanol in gasoline with a substantially better fuel additive called butanol, which some experts regard as "the gasoline of the future."

Study: E15 Causes Engine Damage to Automobiles.  The Coordinating Research Council (CRC), a nonprofit organization that directs engineering and environmental studies on the interaction between automotive equipment and petroleum products, found the 15 percent ethanol blend, known as E15, damaged engine valves and other engine parts in many popular automobiles and light trucks.

Don't blame 'Big Oil' for high gas prices. Blame 'Big Corn.'.  [E]thanol and the Renewable Fuel Standards are terrible public policy — they are contributing to increased incentives to export US fuel and finished petroleum products, which is reflected in higher prices at the pump for American consumers.

The high price of 'Frankenol'.  Originally conceived to breathe life into the fledgling U.S. ethanol industry and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, continued tinkering with the renewable fuel standard (RFS) has turned the program into a nightmare.  The RFS requires refiners to blend increasing amounts of ethanol into the nation's fuel pool annually.  Last year, they were responsible for blending a minimum of 13.2 billion gallons.  This year, the figure stands at 13.8 billion gallons.  By 2022, the RFS mandate will require 36 billion gallons.

Valero Says Ethanol Blending Costs To Double or Triple This Year.  Valero Energy Corp. said it will have to spend two or even three times as much as it did last year to comply with the federal ethanol-blending requirement due to the high prices of credits it needs to buy under the law.

Think ethanol is environmentally friendly? Think again.  Driven in large part by government biofuel mandates on oil refineries, U.S. farmers converted more than 1.3 million acres of grassland into corn and soybean fields between 2006 and 2011, according to a newly published study by scientists at South Dakota State University.  In corn-belt states like Iowa and South Dakota, about 5 percent of pastureland is being converted into cropland every year.  This pasture destruction not only will almost surely lead to higher beef and milk prices, but to serious environmental harm.

The ethanol bubble.  When the price of a commodity rises to stratospheric heights for no apparent reason, it's likely hysterical speculation.  Only the government could come up with a bubble in a commodity that's merely speculative.  This week, the going price for a "renewable identification number" hit a high of $1.10, which is up 3,500 percent from the 3 cents it would have fetched just a few months ago.  Renewable identification numbers are ethanol production credits created by the Environmental Protection Agency to help companies meet federal quotas for the production of a fuel that doesn't actually exist.

Ethanol regs push us into "the blend wall".  Filed under the "we hate when we turn out to be right" category, domestic energy producers are facing some tough choices in the coming months thanks for a one — two punch of ethanol and government regulations.  A combination of the drought this summer wiping out a fair portion of the corn crop and an unfunded mandate scheme by the federal government have resulted in there not being enough affordable ethanol for producers to blend into E-10 fuel.

Don't Like Rising Food Prices? End the Ethanol Mandate.  Congress allowed direct ethanol subsidies to end in 2011, but the renewables standard remains, and it is the bigger factor by far.  Even if we just partially relaxed the renewables standard, corn prices could drop by as much as 20 percent.  The idea that ethanol is a "cleaner" fuel has proven false, and it's use does not reduce carbon dioxide emissions — but then it has become clear that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not causing global warming, so there is no reason for the mandate in any case.  Carbon dioxide emissions have continued to increase, but there has been no warming of the climate in 16 years.  Another of those governmental "bright ideas" that didn't prove out.

EPA's fuel folly.  [Scroll down]  In 2010, the first year of the mandate, EPA projected that 5 million gallons of cellulosic biofuels would be available.  In fact, there were none.  In 2011, EPA increased the mandate to 6.5 million gallons.  Again, the actual amount available was zero.  Undeterred, in 2012, EPA increased the required amount to 8.5 million gallons.  The actual available amount was 25,000 gallons.  Since it is impossible to comply with the mandate to use this phantom fuel, EPA is effectively taxing the industry.  This tax is passed to consumers in the form of higher gas prices.  EPA's overestimates are part of an intentional strategy.

Another Made Up Mandate on Energy that Doesn't Exist.  The dream to "achieve" is cellulosic biofuel or ethanol — which has an admirable goal of producing a renewable transportation fuel without impacting the world's food supply.  Different from corn- or sugar-based ethanol — which is technologically achievable (with questionable benefits) — cellulosic ethanol is made from wood chips, switchgrass, and agricultural waste, such as corn cobs.  The problem is the dream doesn't match reality.

Adding Ethanol To Our Fuel Will Cause Cars To Break Down.  Laws, regulations and public policies always have unintended consequences.  Sometimes they create shortages, even of food.  Other times they bring on housing bubbles.  And then, on occasion, they wreck our cars.

Study: New E15 gas can ruin auto engines.  The fuel industry's American Petroleum Institute tested the 15 percent ethanol gas approved in 2010 and found it gums up fuel systems, prompts "check engine" lights to come on, and messes with fuel gauge readings.  "Failure of these components could result in breakdowns that leave consumers stranded on busy roads and highways," said the industry report.  Worse:  API said the fuel problems — not found in E5 or E10 blends — aren't always covered by auto warranties.

Zero Dark Ethanol.  Ethanol is one of the only products in history that Congress subsidizes and mandates at the same time.  That sounds pretty generous.

Obama's Green Ethanol Bureaucrats Starve The Poor.  At what point does environmental zeal descend into inhumane policy?  Try the ethanol mandate, which is now creating a wave of state-sponsored hunger in poor countries like Guatemala as food is diverted to fuel.

Court rejects EPA biofuel mandate.  Cellulosic biofuel is ethanol fermented from products other than corn, which is the major source of biofuel production in the United States.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the mandate for 2012, which would have held oil refiners accountable for purchasing 8.65 million of gallons of the biofuel even though none is commercially available for sale, was based on flawed projections.

Judge rules EPA can't mandate use of nonexistent biofuels.  The court sided with the country's chief oil and gas lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, in striking down the 2012 EPA mandate that would have forced refineries to purchase more than $8 million in credits for 8.65 million of gallons of the cellulosic biofuel.  However, none of the biofuel is commercially available.

New EPA Mandated Ethanol Fuel Harms Vehicles.  The EPA's latest biofuel initiative may cause substantial damage to vehicles, but why let the effects of bad policy get in the way of implementing unnecessary, burdensome policy?  The EPA recently approved E15, a gasoline blend containing up to fifteen percent ethanol.  According to AAA, less than five percent of cars on the road are approved by automakers to use E15.  The AAA surveyed motorists and found that ninety-five percent hadn't heard of the new fuel.  Not only are consumers unaware of E15, but research indicates the newly approved biofuel may have damaging longterm affects on unapproved vehicles.

Iowa corn yield, production fell 20% last year.  Iowa farmers on Friday got the tally for the damage done to their 2012 corn crop by the heat wave and drought:  a 20 percent drop in yield and production.  Iowa's average yield of 137 bushels per acre for 2012, down from 172 bushels in 2011, was the lowest since 1996.

Obama's Green Ethanol Bureaucrats Starve The Poor.  At what point does environmental zeal descend into inhumane policy?  Try the ethanol mandate, which is now creating a wave of state-sponsored hunger in poor countries like Guatemala as food is diverted to fuel.

Higher corn prices hit stores, chicken farms.  The push for more ethanol made from corn exacerbates supply troubles.

DoE doubling down on feeding "green" ambitions and hiking third-world food prices.  The Obama administration has roundly refused to scale back on its relentless buoying up of the biofuels industry, despite the clamorous criticism of almost everybody except the ethanol lobby; once the supposedly 'environmental' zealots of our bloated federal bureaucracy and their cronyish friends have decided on a policy, that's just all there is to it, and no, we really do not [care] about the real-world unintended consequences.

AAA asks EPA to stop sales of high-ethanol fuel.  AAA urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to halt sales of gasoline with higher ethanol concentrations Friday [12/7/2012], contending the fuel blend causes engine damage not covered under most auto warranties.  EPA says that cars made in the model year 2001 and later can handle E15, the fuel blend made up of 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent petroleum.  But automakers say EPA is only considering the fuel's impact on emissions control systems while disregarding the impact on the rest of the vehicle.

EPA's engine destroying gas may be coming soon.  Nine gas stations in the nation now have pumps with E15 gasoline.  E15 is a blend of regular gasoline mixed with 15 percent ethanol.  The pumps are recognized by their black and orange labels.  And that label is not something you want to ignore.

Ethanol Mandate Turns King Corn Into A Pauper.  In another sign of U.S. decline in the Obama era, the U.S.' share of corn exports has shriveled in the global marketplace.  Our biggest buyer, Japan, has cut its imports of U.S. corn from 2.702 million metric tons last year to 1.968 million metric tons this year.  Similar figures are seen with our other top customers in Taiwan and China.

End of Ethanol.  Once heralded as the key to kicking America's foreign oil addiction by Republicans and Democrats alike, ethanol's political fortunes have faded and the industry's future is unclear amid a growing chorus of critics.

Ethanol is Eating Up U.S. Corn Exports.  Foreign nations that previously relied on the U.S. for corn are growing more of their own or buying from other producing countries, says Philip Abbott, a Purdue University economist.  He predicted the trend will continue even if market conditions improve and U.S. corn production increases.

EPA refuses to waive ethanol mandate.  The Environmental Protection Agency is rejecting requests from states and meat industry groups to waive regulations that require the blending of ethanol into gasoline.  EPA rejected petitions from nearly a dozen states, including Texas, Virginia, and Maryland, for waivers of the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).  "[T]he agency has not found evidence to support a finding of severe 'economic harm' that would warrant granting a waiver of the Renewable Fuels Standard," EPA said Friday [11/16/2012].

New ethanol blend could damage vehicles and void warranties, AAA warns.  The AAA says the Environmental Protection Agency and gasoline retailers should halt the sale of E15, a new ethanol blend that could damage millions of vehicles and void car warranties.  AAA, which issued its warning today, says just 12 million of more than 240 million cars, trucks and SUVs now in use have manufacturers' approval for E15.  Flex-fuel vehicles, 2012 and newer General Motors vehicles, 2013 Fords and 2001 and later model Porsches are the exceptions, according to AAA, the nation's largest motorist group, with 53.5 million members.

EPA should consider American drivers, not special interests.  Reducing dependence on foreign oil is an important goal.  However, the EPA should not allow new fuels without assurances that it won't mean shorter engine life and more trips to the pump.  As Americans are trying to do more with less, Congress should ensure that the EPA considers the needs of American drivers who rely on their cars every day, not certain special interest lobbies.

Corn Ethanol Will Not Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions.  California regulators, trying to assess the true environmental cost of corn ethanol, are poised to declare that the biofuel cannot help the state reduce global warming.  As they see it, corn is no better — and might be worse — than petroleum when total greenhouse gas emissions are considered.

The EPA hearts Big Ethanol.  I'm not even going to get started on the vast — vast, I say — number of federal policies whose justification for existence is that they help protect small family farmers and/or the environment, when in fact, they accomplish precisely the opposite.  For now, I'll just pick the one — the Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires a certain amount of fuel be blended with ethanol (which is generally made from corn) every year.

Obama's EPA Continues Handouts for Rich Ethanol Farmers on the Backs of Consumers.  The single most regressive market-distorting policy to ever emanate from Washington is the absurd tendentious treatment of ethanol.  Over the past decade, ethanol has been the poster child for the worst aspects of big-government crony capitalism.  The ethanol industry has used the fist of government to mandate that fuel blenders use their product, to subsidize their production with refundable tax credits, and to impose tariffs on more efficient sugar-based ethanol from Brazil.

The EPA vs. State Economies.  On Friday [11/16/2012], the Environmental Protection Agency rejected petitions from the governors of Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, and North Carolina to suspend the biofuel-blending requirements established by the federal renewable fuel standard (RFS) program.  This program requires refiners to blend increasing quantities of biofuel — mostly corn ethanol — into the nation's motor-fuel supply.  The 2012 target is to blend 13.2 billion gallons of biofuel into our gasoline, a quantity that ratchets up to 13.8 billion gallons in 2013.

New Study: Ethanol costs one million jobs.  If President Obama still cares about more U.S. jobs and high food costs he can now immediately gain on both.  An economist in Indianapolis just calculated that the U.S. is losing a million jobs this year — along with $30 billion in economic growth — because we shifted too much of our corn into ethanol.