Open Letter to Houston Chronicle, Dianne Feinstein and Pat Toomey About Ethanol +VIDEO

By Marc J. Rauch
Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher
THE AUTO CHANNEL

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Last week, the Houston Chronicle published a story by Jennifer A. Dlouhy titled, "Senator: Only lift export ban if ethanol mandate goes away.". The story is about Dianne Feinstein and her position on America's crude oil export ban and her position on the ethanol.

Dianne Feinstein is a contradiction in terms. She's a paradox; she's an oxymoron. Ms. Feinstein is a Democrat senator from the great socialist State of California; a State that is presumed to be the most progressive of all 50 States; a State that's supposed to be the leader of all environmental causes. Yet she likes Big Oil, and she dislikes ethanol and real alternative energy solutions. Perhaps it's fitting that this article was published by a Texas newspaper because it provides an easy analogy to make: Dianne Feinstein not supporting ethanol is like a Texan who doesn't like cowboy hats, big hair, or the Dallas Cowboys.

Now why would a real Texan not like cowboy hats, big hair, or the Dallas Cowboys? He or she wouldn't, except if there was a serious financial stake in not liking those paragons of Texas existence. I would venture to say that the only real Texans in Texas who don't root for the Dallas Cowboys are the owners of the Houston NFL football team who have an obvious serious financial stake in the Houston Texans.

The article also deals with Senator Pat Toomey's opposition to continuing the federal biofuels mandate. Toomey's opposition may be expected, after all he is a Republican senator from a historic oil producing State. I mention his party only because Republicans are commonly thought to be supportive of status quo business enterprises. His conscience may be able to block out the harm that oil has done, but it just seems too strange for Feinstein to do the same. By all rights, Feinstein should be in ethanol's corner.

Dianne Feinstein must be getting paid a whole lot of money by the oil industry for her position.

I suppose somebody could, and will, suggest that maybe Feinstein's position is correct. The problem, however, is that the position is not correct. Gasoline is poison. For six decades gasoline with tetraethyl-lead was rammed down our throats...literally rammed down our throats. The oil industry lied about the health effects of tetraethyl-lead, they paid off politicians to lie about its effects, and they paid off doctors to lie about its effects. When the truth about tetraethyl-lead was too evident to be contained any longer, the oil industry rammed MTBE down our throat...literally rammed MTBE down our throats.

Now, Feinstein, Toomey, other paid politicians, and the oil industry want to do away with ethanol as the anti-knock oxygenate additive to gasoline and replace it with petroleum-based "aromatics" - a term that makes a mockery of normal oxymoronisms. There is nothing aromatic about benzene or toluene; they stink, and they are poison. Eliminating federal biofuel mandates is a return to the days of leaded gasoline.

Feinstein, Toomey, et al, use the so-called "blend wall" as an excuse for removing biofuel mandates, but the blend wall is fictional: There is no blend wall.

There is no reason to limit ethanol-gasoline blends to just E10. We've been through this already. It is proven that all gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks can safely use blends that are 15% ethanol, 20% ethanol, and even higher ethanol levels. The only tests that purport to show higher level ethanol-gasoline blend cause problems are the fallacious tests sponsored by the oil industry - you know, the same people who rammed tetraethyl-lead down our throats for six decades. The same oil industry that lies and lies, and then lies about their deadly environmental accidents.

If American oil producers have a surplus of crude oil to the point that it can be exported, then why are we not using that surplus to trim the amount of crude oil that we import? It's a simple equation and question, if we have more of our own then we shouldn't be using so much of someone else's. On top of that, what does the issue of crude oil export laws have to do with the biofuels mandate?

Through a spokesperson, Toomey says that he "is tired of the government using corporate welfare to shower money on a favored industry and then sending the bill to taxpayers." I presume that Feinstein would say the same thing. But if Toomey and Feinstein are "tired of using corporate welfare to shower money on a favored industry and then sending the bill to taxpayers," then they should hate the oil industry and love ethanol. There is no industry that has enjoyed a more favorable status in Washington than the oil industry. No industry has been showered with taxpayers money than the oil industry, a very rich and profitable industry.

For more information about the fictional blend wall read The Figurative Ethanol Blend Wall is a Fictional Ethanol Blend Wall.

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