Ethanol has gone from the answer for U.S. energy independence to what some are calling a cure that is worse than the disease, according to a Wall Street Journal article. The biofuel’s critics, which include industries hurt when the price of corn rises, blame ethanol for high food prices and question how eco-friendly it really is. Plans for new plants are being shelved in certain cases, the Journal writes, and stock prices are near 52-week lows.
Here’s some of language being used by critics. A recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development concluded that biofuels “offer a cure [for oil dependence] that is worse than the disease,” according to the article, and an outside expert advising the UN on the “right to food” labeled the use of food crops to make biofuels “a crime against humanity.” The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization later disowned the remark as “regrettable.”
The ethanol lobby is pleading with Congress to drastically boost the amount of ethanol that oil refiners must blend into gasoline. ( The EPA just set a new renewable fuels standard of 4.66 percent, up from 4.02 percent in 2007.)
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Comments
The WSJ got our position on ethanol wrong.
Used without proper context in an article that broadly covers criticism of the ethanol industry, it appears that the American Lung Association is an ethanol critic. This is not true. The American Lung Association recognizes that alternative fuels can play an important role in the reduction of fossil fuel use and that they can vary significantly in their impact on lung health because of their composition and application.
For example, the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest has led a nationally-recognized E85 (an ethanol-based alternative fuel that can be used in flex-fuel vehicles) pilot program since 1998. We remain a strong supporter of E85 and biodiesel, both of which have been tested and approved by the Environmental Protection Agency as cleaner-burning alternatives to traditional petroleum fuels.
Bob from ALAMN November 29th, 2007Surely you folks realize the enormous money being spent to trash talk ethanol and what more conservative source than the WSJ to cite. Why even use a headline like that. Very disappointing. With oil hovering around $100 is the status quo really the answer? Every dollar that goes toward biofuels gets multiplied in our economy and provides for more energy security.
Steve Holmes November 29th, 2007We don’t need talking points from the oil lobby funded “think tanks” guiding our decisions.