By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — There are no shortage of supporters of using ethanol as a viable renewable fuel. One of ethanol’s biggest backers is Newt Gingrich, former Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Since the 1800s we’ve had the challenge of uplifting rural American incomes,” Gingrich said at an Ohio Ethanol Roundtable in downtown Columbus last Friday. “Corn ethanol is an economic driver and it improves the quality of rural life by providing real jobs, with good salaries and good benefits in rural America.”

Gingrich was accompanied on the panel by Jeff Broin, CEO of POET Ethanol, Ohio’s largest ethanol company. They, along with four other panelists, stressed the need for market access to give ethanol the attention it deserves.
“Ethanol is a good way to increase America’s energy supply, helping our economy and our security,” Gingrich said. “Ethanol provides a solution to clean air and gives us a better outcome with a better produce. By far, ethanol is a much better strategy that is much less expensive than the alternative strategies many people talk about.”

He said the idea to create our own fuel while adding income to rural economies is a “win-win” situation. Currently, he said ethanol makes up 9 percent of domestic gasoline and accounts for more than what is imported from Saudi Arabia.

“To this day we grow six times more corn than we did in 1920, and those at Monsanto say we’ll double our corn production in the next 20 years,” Gingrich added. “That’ll be enough corn to produce 50 million gallons of ethanol and we’ll still be able to increase the food and feed supply by 40 percent.

“One has to like the independence that ethanol brings. This way, the next building boon is in Columbus rather than Dubai.”

POET and Broin spearheaded the start of Growth Energy, an industry group pushing to redirect ethanol tax credits currently given to blenders of ethanol instead into infrastructure, including at least one blender pump at every retail station (approximately 200,000) and an increased number of flex fuel vehicles.
“We know we’re competitive with gasoline and it’s going to get better,” Broin said. “Ethanol is price competitive with gasoline and is more fuel efficient. What I also like about ethanol is it’s microbiological rather than chemical in nature.
“We also need to remember that with ethanol we’ll keep grain prices stable for Ohio farmers, we’ll clean up our environment and we’ll be creating jobs right here in Ohio. Yes, there is a competition to the oil companies coming in a big way, as long as we have market access. We need that access to get our produce out there.”

When questioned whether in tight economic times ethanol support should continue, Gingrich said the initial investment to create the industry was necessary.

In other topics, the panel explained the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to allow higher blends of ethanol in gasoline for all vehicles 2001 and newer (see related story). Also discussed was the revolutionary Fueling Freedom plan, which will redirect and phase out government support for ethanol in exchange for lasting infrastructure improvements.

Finally, the group addressed the potential of a 1,700-mile ethanol pipeline that would cross Ohio, taking ethanol from the Dakotas to the East Coast seaboard.
Also on this roundtable were Dwayne Siekman, executive director of the Ohio Corn & Wheat Growers Assoc., Mark Borer, CEO of the Ohio Ethanol Producers Assoc., Henry Cialone, CEO of Edison Welding Institute, and Sam Spofforth, executive director of Clean Fuels Ohio.