We Beat MegaOilron

By our best guesstimates over the last year, MegaOilron has spent around a billion dollars on a propaganda campaign coordinated by the American Petroleum Institute, to convince the public that ethanol is bad for America. At the core of this campaign has been the blatantly false "Food vs. Fuel" Myth. This billion-dollar media campaign (which amounted to less than one percent of Big Oil's annual profits last year) has sought to persuade everyone that ethanol production is jacking up food prices and starving our poor.

The API myth peaked a couple of months ago and had begun to fall apart as expert after expert around the world debunked the fabricated moral argument against alcohol. MegaOilron decided to act to try to capitalize on its powerful propaganda by having Texas governor "Oil Patch" Perry use his office to request an EPA waiver that would have virtually eliminated the congressional mandate to add renewable fuel to gasoline.

News came recently that the EPA denied MegaOilron's mouthpiece his petition to demolish the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Congratulations, you readers. You get some of the credit for making this happen!

It was a close battle. Governor Perry had Big Oil's full backing, as well as huge funding from beef and poultry-industry collaborators. Perry received $100,000 in campaign funds right after submitting the waiver request, and the Poultry Association swept him off to Washington (via a $9,000 private jet ride) to lie--I mean testify--to the EPA that ethanol is hurting the nation's economy and driving up the price of food.

What did our side have? The Alcoholics Unanimous Farmy, our group of affiliate writers who go out and counter anti-alcohol propaganda, ... and the truth.

The EPA received 15,000 letters from people concerning the issue, and I figure a lot of them were the result of you folks propagating my piece called I Told You So all over the Web and the forums you weighed in on. It reminded everyone that the Renewable Fuels Standard took over for the Clean Air Act provisions that called for ethanol to be added to gasoline to reduce the toxicity of gasoline emissions. It just wasn't a discretionary action to reduce the alcohol in our fuel supply and cause emphysema, lung damage, and reduced oxygen to urban kids brains, while dramatically damaging the American rural economy, just so the oil companies could keep control of the fuel market.

When Ol' Oil Patch, saw the tide was going against him, he even had the EPA illegally delay its decision date (without reopening the public comment period), while the oil companies tried to pile on pressure to roll back the congressional renewable fuel mandate. But in the face of public scrutiny, they couldn't get away with a backroom deal to cripple the alcohol industry and subvert the will of Congress.

As I outline in Alcohol Can Be a Gas!, MegaOilron's primary strategy is to delay the buildup of the farmer and small business alcohol fuel movement in order to precipitate an energy shortage and crisis. These entrepreneurs are poised to take up the slack as oil production dwindles, by making $60 a barrel alcohol fuel. It makes it pretty hard to convince the public that its going to want or need $175/barrel oil shale, tar sands or coal based gasoline. The only way MegaOilron can get the public to buy their expensive, foul, planet-destroying toxic fuel is to get our backs against the wall and convince of us TINA (There Is No Alternative.)

Rolling back the Renewable Fuel Standard was a key part of that strategy, and you helped foil them. Pat yourselves on the back for dealing Big Oil a serious setback.

Comments

[mamacat]

I will be paying more attention to this issue, thanks to this blog.

However, I have read several articles by scientists, and not in the mass media, that make the argument that ethanol-from-farm-foods is a bad idea. The argument uses the idea that you have discounted - that it increases competition for food stuffs - and also that using ethanol still promotes the use of the internal combustion engine for our personal transportation.

Using ethanol and CNG where they are readily available seems to be a reasonable short term alternative to using imported oil, but in the long run I think we need to develop alternative, cleaner sources of energy, with which to power PHEVs and EVs.

[cylindar]

I don't like big oil and I like your ideas, but you are wrong about the fact that biofuels are not creating a problem in the food markets. There are too many stats to prove you wrong and they are not stats from big oil. Ethanol is an alternative but not on a large scale. It is too costly to produce at the moment in regard to the amount of water needed and land that depletes our national resources to a great degree. Biofuels are a nono for the green revolution on a large scale. They will work for consumer produced usage but beyond that forget about it. If biofuels are to be used in this country then I say they should be produced and sold without government subsidies padding the way. Then the consumer will get the real idea of how innappropriate these fuels are for large scale production and use. Brazil gets away with it because they don't mind raping the land and they have a lot of jungle to burn down, at least for a while. That will end for them sometime in the future however and they will be in the same boat as the rest of us.

[tompoe]

David, you should have said something! Why didn't you shout out, and alert your readers sooner? If only you would have spoken up. Man, give David the responsibility to keep his readers informed, and he blows it. Way to go, David. Next time, try to do better, eh? No more secrets, please. It doesn't help our world.