You’re Ugly But “We” Love You Big Oil
My Week of Oil is coming to a close (but will never end) and California has made another interesting move. The California Energy Commission has a new Commissioner – Anthony Eggert. Two highlights of his career include his time serving as the Science and Technology Adviser to Mary Nichols at the California Air Resources Board. Prior to that, he did his Ph.D under Daniel Sperling at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. Sperling is a huge proponent of hydrogen and opponent of ethanol.
Wowzers. Things could get even uglier in California.
While we wait for the fall-out of yet another Big Oil enthusiast securing a high-level energy position, I want to reiterate my disgust over the state’s earlier move in turning down the $11 million in stimulus funds for 55 E85 pumps in Southern California. The reason according to an article in The San Diego Union Tribune, “But the regional agency in Los Angeles that would have received the money for the project voted last week to reject it, in part because its members don’t believe that ethanol is a worthy alternative to gasoline.”
Really? Then why did you bother wasting your time in passing and enacting the Low Carbon Fuels Standard? The only options to reduce carbon dioxide are propane, natural gas and biofuels and natural gas is fossil-fuel based and propane is virtually only available for fleets. Biofuels are the only immediate option today to reduce CO2 emissions.
The state of California is like a person cheating on his diet – they are advocating a clean energy diet, but eating copious amounts ‘fossil fuels’ mainly sugar and carbs. With this type of thinking, and other states unfortunately looking up to California, our country will never achieve a sustainable and secure energy program, and this my friends, is a very scary position in which to be.
4 Comments »
sam
When politicians are controlled by corporations, innovation and positive environmental change remain squelched. It is all about money and so-called experts worried about losing their positions. “Do as we say or else” is the state of our nation at this time and what a shame it is, which is why China and other nations are beating us silly with clean energy technology implementation.
Rick
The agency that turned down the E85 funds – the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) – is a completely different agency than the ARB. SCAG has very little, if anything, to do with implementing LCFS. SCAG turned the money down for more reasons than their skepticism about corn based ethanol. There is a lot more to the story than has been reported thus far. What has been reported thus far is cherrypicking at best and does not even begin to get into the complexities of this E85 grant, using federal stimulus funds (which require NEPA analysis for every site) for 50+ fueling stations, legal concerns about a public agency sole-sourcing tens of millions of business, and the backstory on how this whole project was put together to begin with.
sciguy2
Rick, there is more and hopefully more will be discovered. 1) Democratic Congressional Candidate Debbie Cook affected the vote by passing out a corn ethanol myths & half-truths sheet of paper just before the meeting. Then she presented that information as if it was factual, and was given a preferential position to present it at the beginning. She’s not on SCAG even. 2) Debbie Cook and one or two others hinted at ARB numerous times, including wondering why they were not taking ARB’s research findings into account. The research findings are exactly what this and previous articles on DF were talking about. ARB has tainted the public discussion in this way. They are more important in this SCAG decision than what would appear at first. One can watch the meeting on SCAG’s website. 3) There were more reasons than their opposition to corn ethanol, but that is what they focused on. And this wasn’t to be corn ethanol anyway, but waste beverage and cellulosic ethanol. 4) These partnerships between governmental agencies, Clean Cities, and private industry are happening all over the country–this would have been nothing new. 5) Pearson Fuels did submit its application correctly–internal politics and miscommunication within SCAG caused additional concern. SCAG and Clean Cities have partnered to provide grants to single applicants many times before and will many times in the future, rest assured. A grant that provides $10.9 million, 221 local jobs, and clean air for the region (part of SCAG’s mission) should not be turned away in such rash manners. This was a poor decision by SCAG based mostly on unscientific and quite probably Oil-funded research backed by appointed officials with Oil ties financially and relationally, which hurt local jobs, the local economy, and local health. It is a huge shame, unethical, and there even may have been illegal activity (not necessarily at SCAG) that contributed to the decision. Reference CA codes against conflicts of interest.
New Energy Plan – Offshore Drilling - Domestic Fuel
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