Hampering Progress

Once again the oil companies win out. Last week the House Science Committee passed legislation that would require the Environmental Protection Agency to perform yet additional testing on the ethanol fuel blend E15 before use is allowed. National Corn Growers are disappointed over the legislation, and rightly so. E15 has been thoroughly tested and retested by the EPA, and approved for use in vehicles. Perhaps that’s why its use is being blocked so vehemently. This bill will require the National Academies of Science to conduct further research comparing mid-level ethanol blends to blends containing ten percent and zero ethanol. Their findings would then go back to the House Science Committee a full eighteen months after enactment of the legislation, involving time and effort that is merely prolonging the inevitable. The day will finally come when no amount of lobbying and political pressure will stop the increase and eventual primary use of renewable fuels in the world market. Ethanol may have its own problems, but if it were between corn ethanol and energy from strictly fossil fuels, I’d pick corn.