July 23, 2010
Opinion: Give consumers choices on fueling
Published in Politico
In my years defending America, I realized we can never be truly safe as long as we are dependent on energy from other countries.
Every day, the United States bleeds away about $1 billion to oil-producing countries like Venezuela and Nigeria. Our dependency on oil is crippling our economy and our national security — and it limits our fuel options.
If we want to break free of oil’s grip, we must provide U.S. motorists with the choice of fueling their car with a renewable, homegrown fuel like ethanol.
Growth Energy, the coalition of U.S. ethanol supporters, has proposed a plan that would end government subsidies and allow ethanol to compete by establishing a genuinely free and open fuel market.
The fueling freedom plan aims to redirect the current Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit, the “blender’s tax credit,” to support the build-out of the distribution infrastructure – blender pumps, pipelines and flex fuel vehicles – to give Americans a choice of fuels at the pump.
An investment in blender pumps and flex fuel vehicles would give drivers a choice of mid- and high-level ethanol blends at filling stations across the country. Choice is important: At a time when we are coping with the worst ecological disaster in U.S. history, we need a fuel that is cleaner and friendlier for our environment than oil.
But we will never be able to give consumers that choice until we break Big Oil’s control of fuel distribution in this country. This plan levels the playing field. With the upfront investment in infrastructure, it lets ethanol compete on the open market with oil.
Ethanol is 59 percent cleaner than oil and, every day, ethanol producers are developing technological improvements to increase efficiency, reduce water use and boost the amount of energy derived from corn kernels or cellulosic biomass.
At the same time, consistent increases in crop yields and record harvests prove that America’s farmers can continue to produce enough grain to meet food, feed and fuel demand without affecting prices at the local grocery store.
Every gallon of cleaner-burning domestic ethanol means less reliance on foreign oil - making our nation stronger, more economically secure and environmentally friendlier for our children and grandchildren.
More important, when we produce ethanol here, we’re also producing the jobs that can get this country’s economy moving again.
In a fair and open market – where ethanol is an option for consumers – it can succeed on its own. U.S. consumers could choose enough domestically produced ethanol from both corn and cellulosic feedstocks to completely displace foreign oil imports. That is a strategy we should all support.
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