Domestic Fuel

Political Agenda Corrupting EPA and CARB Science

Last year, Ag Chairman, Congressman Collin Peterson openly stated that the EPA is in bed with the oil industry. Look at the long list of carcinogens and neurotoxins in gasoline, including the killer benzene, plus Sulfurous Black Carbon Soot. These are actual pollutants that the EPA fails to regulate. Then ask yourself why EPA has classified CO2 as a pollutant instead, and made it their top priority. And why the EPA allowed oil refineries in Texas and other states to repeatedly violate emissions rules for decades. And why the EPA has distorted the evironmental footprint of gasoline, and used this to create a false comparison against biofuels, using an outdated petroleum baseline. EPA fails to factor-in the shift to “energy and pollution intensive” crude oils, such as miles-deep offshore oil wells and Canadian Tar Sands that are deforesting millions of acres. Why the EPA lowballs the impact of burning dirty bunker fuel, to ship imported oil and foreign ethanol thousands of miles to the United States. Why the EPA low-balls the impact of burning huge quantities of military jet fuel, diesel fuel, and more bunker fuel to protect the US foreign oil supply chain. Why the EPA embraced international indirect land use change theory, which can’t be scientifically proven – using it to manipulate and restrict American ethanol. Why the EPA allowed a fraudulent peer review process, whereby the author of the controversial theory and his assistants and colleagues, all biofuel critics and political activists with conflicts of interest, rubber stamped their own work. Why the EPA excluded from the peer review process, more experienced land use experts in the Dept of Agriculture. Why the EPA, two months after their preliminary rule, reduced indirect land use change impact for Brazilian ethanol a whopping 93% for their final rule…While at the same time, a scholarly German study declared that ALL direct and indirect land use change in Brazil, and ALL Brazilian deforestation, was caused by expanding Brazilian industries – Not American ethanol. This is the exact opposite of what the EPA falsely claims in their RFS-2 rules…C-ARB also uses false indirect land use change analysis to blackball Corn Belt ethanol.

Using these tactics and a false tailpipe comparison between the newly mined carbon that gasoline is spewing into the air vs recycled CO2 released by ethanol – EPA under-rated conventional ethanol at only 21% cleaner than gasoline. This is way off. Two recent studies: one funded by the USDA and North Central Bioeconomy Consortium gave conventional ethanol a rating of 48-59% cleaner than gasoline, and the other study at Yale concluded that corn ethanol is 59% cleaner than gasoline. Why the big discrepancy? Because EPA is still falsely claiming that American ethanol is displacing land in foreign countries, when it’s Not.

Over the objections of 111 scientists, lead by three prominent experts in the field, C-ARB prematurely embraced defective and corrupt EPA science. This included the unproven indirect land use change theory, which C-ARB illegally rammed into their rules, without first conducting an independent peer review in accordance with state law. This was designed to keep out-of-state ethanol out of California, to protect the state’s own petroleum industry, in violation of Federal Interstate Commerce Law. See: “California’s Love Affair with Oil”, by Joanna Schroeder (Domestic Fuel).

Using EPA’s false analysis of the land use change theory, C-ARB declared that California would block domestic American made corn ethanol from crossing state lines, and instead import Brazilian ethanol in its place. If you exclude domestic corn ethanol, by using false analysis, as California foolishly and illegally plans to do, and then import Brazilian ethanol in its place – You are out-sourcing American jobs to Brazil. Not only the jobs – but billions in farm subsidy offsets, multiple levels of tax revenue, and the huge economic stimulus that domestic corn ethanol creates. That would also shift one dependency on imported oil to another dependency on foreign ethanol. This plays into the hands of the privately owned central bank, which collects perpetual floating interest on debt instruments, added to the National Debt, which we use to pay for imported fuel. In contrast, there is Zero floating interest on domestic biofuel.

EPA and C-ARB have woven a web of deception based on a hidden pseudo-environmental political agenda that favors the industries of their choice. And at their whim, they can selectively enforce or not enforce their rules, while maintaining the superficial image of a government agency… Welcome to the age of over-regulation of agriculture and biofuels, using falsified science.