A fracture between pro- and anti-ethanol forces seems to be widening into a gorge now that the EPA has expanded the fuel's reach in the transportation sector.
On one side, business, environmental, budget watchdog and public interest organizations are castigating the Environmental Protection Agency's recent decision to allow vehicles manufactured between 2001 and 2006 to use gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol. On the other side, the Renewable Fuels Association won't be content until even older-model cars, trucks, minivans and sport utility vehicles are included in the E15 mix.
The vituperative back-and-forth has spilled over to Capitol Hill where Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, is seeking an oversight hearing.
The Clean Air Act waiver for E15 gasoline that the EPA announced last Friday comes on the heels of the agency's mid-October granting of an E15 waiver covering vehicles built during and after 2007. A 10 percent ethanol limit still stands for pre-2001 vehicles.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said she reached the E15 conclusion after reviewing testing conducted by the Department of Energy.
Pollution, Confusion at Gas Pumps Feared
Opponents of Jackson's line of thinking greeted her announcement with a chorus of jeers about the supposed benefits of corn ethanol.
Not only does it spew more climate-damaging emissions than gasoline, they claim, but ethanol production takes land away from food production, raises food prices, encroaches on natural ecosystems, and pollutes water sources because it requires so much fertilizer. As well, they add, varying ethanol blends will puzzle drivers at the pump.
Other critics from entities as varied as Friends of the Earth, the American Bakers Association, Americans for Limited Government, the American Meat Institute, the National Meat Association, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the International Dairy Foods Association, the National Chicken Council, the National Turkey Federation and the National Council of Chain Restaurants rang in with equally harsh summations.
Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said every city would suffer from increased air pollution because "higher levels of ethanol in motor vehicle fuel mean higher emissions of nitrogen oxides, an important contributor to ground-level ozone, and other harmful air pollutants."
