By Alan Caruba
One can hardly get through the week without learning of yet another absurd new program by the Environmental Protection Agency. The latest is a five percent increase in the amount of ethanol that must be added to the nation’s supply of gasoline.
In 2010, even Al Gore told a business conference in Athens that his previous support for blending ethanol with gasoline as a Senator from Tennessee was a mistake and based on a political decision concerning the support of farmers in his home state. At the time he spoke, corn ethanol subsidies to farmers represented $7.7 billion.
Ethanol was touted as yet another way to offset “greenhouse gas” emissions and prevent “global warming.” In 2010, ethanol production consumed an estimated 41 percent of the U.S. corn crop and 15 percent of the global corn crop.
The obvious result has been to drive up the cost of all food products that include corn and its derivatives. And there neither was nor is any “global warming”!
Two years later there is still no “global warming”, but the EPA has never been deterred by real science such as the fact that the Earth has been cooling since 1998. E15 is a diabolical mandate that will do widespread damage to autos using it and to the pumping and storage facilities to distribute it. And it is occurring as the market for ethanol is stalling.
It is by any definition, a criminal act by a rogue federal agency.
The Science Committee of the House of Representatives is trying to prevent the implementation of the EPA E15 mandate. This comes after more than 30 years of blending ethanol at a ten percent rate into gasoline; three decades of a blend that actually produces less mileage at the same time the production of ethanol generates the same level of carbon in the atmosphere as burning gasoline without ethanol.
The E115 mandate should trouble anyone with an automobile, motorcycle, outdoor or any equipment that runs on gasoline. Last summer, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WIS) sent the EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, letters from car companies expressing their opposition.
“Ford does not support the introduction of E15 into the marketplace for the legacy fleet…Fuel not approved in the owner’s manual is considered misfueling and any damage resulting from misfueling is not covered by the warranty.” Both Chrysler and Honda sent comparable letters with the latter noting “There appears to be the potential for engine failure.”
E15 will be restricted to autos of the vehicle model year 2001 and later. The Obama administration set a goal “to help fueling station owners install 10,000 blender pumps over the next five years”, but the real question is why would any government even consider doing something that represents millions in damage to automobiles using it?
Additionally, why should Congress continue to provide ethanol subsidies to its producers when the evidence of the passed thirty years use has not only demonstrated that it reduces the mileage that pure gasoline would provide and, more importantly, serves no purpose whatever regarding the non-existent “global warming” that is the sole justification for the blend?
The answer is that the EPA does not care that as many as five million cars in the current fleet could suffer damage and total engine failure which is not covered by their warranties.
The EPA is the Obama administration’s tip of the sword in its war on the use of all fossil fuels for any reason. It has nothing to do with science. It portends to wreak further havoc on drivers and the economy.
What is desperately needed is the complete reform of the EPA before it further threatens the safely, health, and lives of Americans.
© Alan Caruba, 2012
Comment
Comment by Virginia Gomez on June 13, 2012 at 7:24pm PLEASE SOMEONE PLEASE GET RID OF obama AND THE EPA!!!
Comment by Kristin Fecteau on June 13, 2012 at 7:19pm we need Congressional hearings on this.
Comment by Russell Edmund Fowler on June 13, 2012 at 7:14pm Herman Cain if elected would have shut down the EPA. Epa works for the citizen, We the people do not work for EPA.
Comment by Linda Sills on June 13, 2012 at 7:10pm They are doing this as part of the BIG evil plan to get you OUT of your car altogether. They do NOT want private ownership of transportation..all the better to control us. Wake up
Comment by Jim Coles on June 13, 2012 at 7:07pm BHO & his pals = the criminally insane
EPA = EnviroLunaticFringe...all certifiable
Endangered Species Act = Legal theft of property rights
Dept. of Interior/Bureau of Land Management = radical leftists who hate private property rights
Only solution to the whole mess = total abolition
BHO Must GO!!!!
Comment by Rudy McGillvray on June 13, 2012 at 6:58pm "The EPA is the Obama administration’s tip of the sword in its war on the use of all fossil fuels for any reason. It has nothing to do with science. It portends to wreak further havoc on drivers and the economy."
Looks to me like it's time to rid ourselves of the EPA, and to save even more money, let's do away with the DEA, also!!!
Comment by Jerry Schmidt on June 13, 2012 at 6:20pm So, food shortages and destroyed autos, sounds like BO and the EPA at their best. Soilent green and bicycles, it's gonna be a long winter.......in our unheated homes, and a long summer without air conditioning. Well, I guess it will reduce the population.
Comment by Carolyn Hamilton on June 13, 2012 at 6:15pm On the seven thirty am news, in my vehicle, they were telling us a study was completed and the findings are as follows: Diesel is worse than second hand smoke and the EPA is in the process of ya ya ya.. I almost turned my F250 power stroke diesel over... WHAT NEXT??? Is there no end to their BS??
Bo is not working for the U.S. but for the U.N and to implement agenda 21... Time to drag his *%&@ out...
Comment by Rich Knoch on June 13, 2012 at 6:08pm The easy, simple and immediate solution is to CUT THE BUDGETS of the EPA, Energy, Education and other un-American and CONSTANTLY HISTORICALLY FAILED government departments.
As soon as we get the obama criminals out and take back the Senate . . . . this is exactly what they should do . . . . . contact your congressperson and demand they remove their head from their rear-end and THINK!.
Comment by sharon ostwinch on June 13, 2012 at 5:59pm I must agree with William Grant congress is useless and we need to do something. The EPA is out of control just as is this government. At some point this craziness must stop.
© 2013 Created by Judson Phillips.
You need to be a member of Tea Party Nation to add comments!
Join Tea Party Nation