A majority of the U.S. Senate has gone on record against an Environmental Protection Agency plan to require a market for ethanol in gasoline.
The agency proposed a rule last December to require that 30% of the compounds used to add oxygen to reformulated gasoline (RFG) come from renewable sources such as ethanol (OGJ, Jan. 24, p. 16).
Forty-eight senators signed a petition against the proposal. Counting three senators who wrote EPA separately, a majority of 51 has voiced opposition.
CHAOS PREDICTED
In a letter to EPA Administrator Carol Browner, the 48 senators said the ethanol rule would create chaos in the marketplace, cause RFG deliverability problems, and increase the cost of the fuel - all without environmental benefits.
They said, "The ethanol industry is already one of the most subsidized industries in the world. Without accounting for the vast quantities of nonrenewable fossil fuels use in production, the industry provides only enough fuel to displace a little more than 1 day's worth of oil. In exchange, ethanol manufacturers receive a $550 million check from the taxpayer.
"Under the EPA mandate, this industry will drain the U.S. Treasury and the Highway Trust Fund of an additional $340 million annually. Given the need to reduce the federal deficit, a decision to increase the subsidy is simply inexplicable."
'SPECIAL INTEREST GIVEAWAY'
Charles DiBona, American Petroleum Institute president, said, "This outrageous attempt to force the use of ethanol is the kind of special interest giveaway the voters have protested ever more emphatically election after election.
"It really is a flagrant action to raise gasoline costs in order to enrich ethanol producers. It never should have been given serious consideration, much less proposed by a federal agency whose mission is environmental protection."
He said the proposal has no environmental benefit and has been criticized by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Sierra Club, California Air Resources Board, and Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, an association of state air pollution control agencies representing eight states from New Jersey to Maine.
DiBona said EDF reminded EPA that a congressional Office of Technology Assessment study has dismissed the use of annual crops such as corn, from which ethanol is derived, as a source of energy because of the environmental damage associated with cultivation and because the growing and processing of com to make ethanol cancels most of the energy gain from the fuel.
He said, "EPA, by its own admission, has no statutory authority under the Clean Air Act to mandate the use of renewable oxygenates or any other specific oxygenate, and ethanol mandates were soundly rejected during the congressional debate of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments and in the regulatory negotiations that followed.
"This proposed mandate jeopardizes the orderly implementation of the RFG program that is required to start Jan. 1, 1995. With less than 1 year lead time, it creates new regulatory uncertainties and complexities that could result in supply disruptions and increased costs to consumers.
"The EPA proposal would benefit only ethanol producers at the expense of consumers and taxpayers, the economy, and-most important-the environment. The case against EPA'S proposal to require ethanol in RFG is compelling and should convince the agency to withdraw its proposal."
Copyright 1994 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
