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| Sen. Grassley: Ethanol is not the cause of the world’s woes |
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The following is a prepared statement about ethanol which Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) delivered to the U.S. Senate on May 15.
For almost 30 years I’ve been leading an effort, with many of my colleagues, to promote policies to grow a domestic renewable fuels industry.
We’ve promoted homegrown renewable fuels as a way to lessen our dependence on foreign oil and improve our air quality. For all these years, we’ve hardly heard anything negative about these policies.
Now, ethanol and alternative fuels are being made the scapegoat for a whole variety of problems. Never before have the virtuous benefits of ethanol and renewable fuels been so questioned and criticized.
The problem is, none of these criticisms are based on sound science, economics or even common sense.
Even Mort Kondracke, an intelligent veteran journalist has fallen prey to some of the same erroneous talking points that we’ve heard over and over the past couple weeks. Maybe he’s just spent too much time inside the beltway and could use a little real-world explanation from a family farmer from the Midwest.
Some of my colleagues here in the Senate have also gotten involved in this misinformation campaign. It seems there is a “group-think” mentality when it comes to scapegoating ethanol for everything from high gas prices, global food shortages, global warming and deforestation.
But, as was recently reported, this anti-ethanol campaign is not a coincidence. It turns out that a $300,000, six-month retainer of a beltway public relations firm is behind the smear campaign, hired by the Grocery Manufacturers Assoc. They’ve outlined their strategy of using environmental, hunger and food aid groups to demonstrate their contrived “crisis.”
I think it’s important for policy-makers and the American people to know who’s behind this effort.
According to reports, downtown D.C. lobbyists, the Glover Park Group and Dutko Worldwide, are leading the effort to undermine and denigrate the patriotic achievement of America’s farmers to reduce our dependence on foreign oil while also providing safe and affordable food.
The principle leaders behind the Glover Park Group’s 21-page proposal read like a “who’s who” of Democratic operatives.
The effort is led by former President Clinton’s press secretary, Joe Lockhart. Another is 8-year veteran of the Clinton-Gore White House, Michael Feldman.
Other leaders of this misinformation campaign include Carter Eskew, Mike Donilon, Joel Johnson, and Susan Brophy – all of which proudly display their ties to the Clinton/Gore White House and their credentials of helping to elect Democratic candidates. I think Democrats here in the Senate who claim to support our nation’s drive toward energy independence should be alarmed by this group’s tactics and smear campaign.
I fought President Clinton during his eight years in office at every turn when he tried to undermine our renewable fuels industry. Now I’m fighting his former staff and staff that worked for the Gore and Kerry presidential campaigns.
I imagine they’re leading this effort because they can’t stand the fact that President Bush has proved to be the best friend the renewable fuels industry has had. Because their old boss failed miserably at crafting policies to promote ethanol, they’re doing everything they can to tear down the success that President George W. Bush has helped foster.
There are a lot of intelligent people who have been misled by this campaign and are just simply wrong. They’re using a lot of rhetoric. But, the facts don’t back up their arguments. It’s time to dispel the myths perpetuated by Mr. Kondracke, the Glover Park Group and others.
One myth that pops up again and again is that ethanol takes more energy to produce than it provides. A 2005 Argonne National Laboratory study concluded that it takes seven-tenths of one unit of fossil energy to make 1 unit of ethanol. That is a positive net energy balance.
In comparison, it takes 1.23 units of fossil energy to make 1 unit of petroleum gasoline. Gasoline requires more than one Btu of energy to deliver one Btu to your car. That’s a negative net energy balance.
A 2004 USDA study concluded that ethanol yields 67 percent more energy than is used to grow and harvest the grain and process it into ethanol. These figures take into account the energy required to plant, grow and harvest the corn - as well as the energy required to manufacture and distribute the ethanol.
Of the 15 peer-reviewed studies conducted on this issue, 12 found that ethanol has a positive net energy balance. Only a single individual from Cornell University, who authored the other three studies, disagrees with this analysis.
The Cornell studies have consistently used old data, some from 1979. In 1979, corn yields averaged 91 bushels per acre. It was at 137 bushels per acre in 2000, and averages about 150-160 today.
The flawed study also relies on 1979 figures for the energy used to manufacture ethanol. This energy consumption was cut in half between 1979 and 2000, and continues efficiency gains every year.
The Cornell conclusions have been refuted by experts from entities as diverse as the USDA, the Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, Michigan State University, and the Colorado School of Mines. The fact is, studies using old data overestimate energy use by not taking into account efficiency gains in agriculture, fertilizer production, and ethanol production.
I don’t understand how intelligent people can continue to argue that ethanol has a negative net energy balance.
The net energy balance of ethanol production continues to improve because ethanol production is becoming more efficient. A March 2008 study by the Argonne National Laboratory found significant gains just since 2001.
Ethanol production since 2001 has reduced water use by 27 percent, reduced electricity use by 16 percent, and reduced total energy use by 22 percent.
Another myth being perpetuated by opponents of our renewable fuels efforts and Mr. Kondracke is that ethanol harms the environment and contributes more in greenhouse gases than petroleum fuels. This claim is just hogwash. Science magazine and Time magazine made wildly erroneous claims about corn ethanol that are now being used by detractors.
They claim that ethanol production is the driving force behind rainforest deforestation and grassland conversion to agriculture production. This is an oversimplification to say the least.
How could intelligent people simply ignore the effects of a growing global population? How can one simply ignore the surging global demand for food from growing populations in China and India?
Wouldn’t urban development and sprawl also be a contributor to the increased demand for arable land?
USDA Secretary Ed Schafer and Energy Secretary Sam Bodman stated in a letter to Time Magazine that their piece on ethanol, based on the Science magazine article, was “one-sided and scientifically uninformed.”
They further stated that the Science magazine article has been “thoroughly rebutted by leading scientists at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory.”
Dr. Wang of that Laboratory stated, “There has also been no indication that U.S. corn ethanol production has so far caused indirect land use changes in other countries.” |
| 5/21/2008 |
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