August 05, 2010
Editorial: Drivers should have ethanol choices
Published in Journal Gazette
It is hard to decide which is more important: the environment, the economy, or our national security. One thing is certain, our dependence on oil impacts all three – and not in a good way.
Ethanol is the only commercially-viable alternative we have to gasoline refined from oil. Ethanol creates U.S. jobs, cleans the air and strengthens national security. Best of all, it is here right now.
Unfortunately, access to ethanol is limited by the fact that the oil companies either own or control the entire infrastructure to dispense fuel in this country – from the point of drilling the well to the point where that fuel nozzle goes into your car.
If we want to give American motorists the choice of fueling their automobiles with ethanol, we need an investment in ethanol distribution infrastructure.
A coalition of ethanol supporters called Growth Energy has introduced a plan, Fueling Freedom, which aims to fix that.
The Fueling Freedom Plan would phase out the blender’s tax credit, which right now doesn’t even go to ethanol producers but goes to the fuel blenders (the oil companies) as an incentive to blend ethanol, and redirect some portion of that tax credit to help pay for the installation of blender pumps and flex-fuel vehicles.
If every car or pickup in the U.S. was flex-fuel, and nearly every fueling station had blender pumps, then Americans would have a genuine choice in the marketplace. We could choose gasoline, if the price was right. Or we could choose ethanol because we want cleaner air, or want to keep our money here in America, or bring our soldiers back from the Middle East.
With ethanol, we don’t have to choose between the environment, the economy, or our national security. With ethanol, we can improve them all.
