Domestic Fuel

There are lots of organizations that are involved in some aspect of domestic fuels. I had the opportunity to talk with two of them this week in Kansas City at the National Association of Farm Broadcasters meeting. The first is the Renewable Fuels Association. According to their website, RFA was started in 1981 to be a voice for the ethanol industry “providing advocacy, authoritative analysis, and important industry data to its members, Congress, federal and state government agencies, strategic partners, the media and other opinion-leader audiences.” RFA lobbies on behalf of renewable fuels on the national level and was very involved in the drive for comprenensive energy legislation to help the industry. Click here to listen to my interview RFA President Bob Dinneen at NAFB. Bob did many interviews on Thursday in Kansas City with farm broadcasters from all over the country. RFA recently announced a new feature for their website – archived audio and video clips! The “Video Archives” and “Audio Comments,” located under the Media Center menu, will provide video clips of important industry events as well as audio versions of the latest news from RFA. Both media formats may be downloaded for later viewing or use in news reports. That’s a great way to use the website to get information out to both the media and the general public!

The Governator is pushing for the development of alternative fuels in his state. Green Star Products has this release on their website. Visit the website for the full release.

Last Thursday September 29, 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger of California signed into law a proposal authored by State Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) that would allow public agencies and utilities to use vehicles that run off of biodiesel and biodiesel blends.

American Biofuels (ABF), a biodiesel producing company which is 35% owned by Green Star Products, Inc. (OTC: GSPI), has been working with the California Energy Commission for some time now to establish production and usage criteria for the State of California.

We’ve been pointing you to news about how different states are considering or expanding on legislation to mandate the use of ethanol in gasoline. The National Corn Growers Association put out a story today on their “News of the Day” that summarizes some of these efforts.

When there are so many reasons why it makes sense to use domestically produced fuel you have to wonder why anyone would object but people do. Part of the reason is a lack of facts and common sense. In Wisconsin there’s an effort to mandate a 10percent blend of ethanol and gas but according to a story today in the GazetteXtra this is being fought hard by an unlikely coalition of environmental and oil-interest groups. The story makes it sound like there’s more emotion involved than fact.

A number of states already have this type of legislation like Missesota, Montana and Hawaii. Others are considering it like Iowa according to a story today on WOI-TV that says that Iowa Representative Jim Nussle has introduced a bill that would make 20 percent of Iowa’s energy come from renewable sources by 2010.

Legislation is pending in Missouri to mandate a 10% blend of ethanol in that state.

In case you’re wondering where things stand with new national renewable fuels standards you can hear an update from Missouri Senator Jim Talent. Senator Talent (pictured speaking at an E-85 fuel station in St. Charles, MO) was a guest on the Missouri Corn Growers Association weekly CornTalk program. Talent speaks about his efforts to get the Environmental Protection Agency to move forward on this issue.

U.S. Senator Jim Talent (R-Mo.), co-chair of the Senate Biofuels Caucus, is asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to move quickly to implement the new national standard for renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. In a letter to EPA Administrator Steve Johnson, Sen. Talent, together with Senators Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), John Thune (R-S.D.) and Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), said time is of the essence, as the Renewable Fuels Standard will take effect next year.

“Given today’s record oil and gasoline prices, the need to diversify our energy supplies by expanding the use of renewable fuels is clear,” the senators wrote. “The Renewable Fuels Standard will provide for the use of 4 billion gallons of renewable fuel next year, growing to 7.5 billion gallons in 2012. The program is a necessary and important part of our nation’s new energy policy.”

You can hear an excerpt from the program here:

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