Behold The Ruin Your Passivity and Compromise Have Wrought - Open Letter to the Ethanol Fuel Industry +UPDATE
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 Marc Rauch |
Author of THE ETHANOL PAPERS and YES, TIN LIZZIE WAS AN ALCOHOLIC
Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher
THE AUTO CHANNEL
I awoke Monday morning to find two ethanol-related Google alerts on my computer. The first pertained to an editorial written by Michael McKenna that was published the previous day (Sunday) on the Washington Times website. This work of nescience is titled "Want lower gas prices? Suspend ethanol mandate, federal gas tax".
The 2nd alert concerned an article written by Cindy Zimmerman, an award-winning journalist and co-founder of Energy.AgWired.com. This article, titled "Ethanol Under Fire," didn't feature Cindy's position on ethanol; it reported on the anti-ethanol comments that have been coming from Utah Senator Mike Lee.
The information set forth in the McKenna editorial befits a 6-year-old with the IQ of a 2-year-old. If his editorial was a litmus test for intelligence, and we are using old tried and true scientific/medical terms to describe him, he would rate as an "idiot," which is lower than "moron" and "imbecile." In Lee's case, I would use a slightly different comparison scale, one that my friends and I would have used when we were in elementary school (that's 1st through 6th grades for you Millenials). The scale was "schmo," "schnook," and "schmuck." "Schmuck" is the lowest, basically the same as "idiot," but without the scientific nomenclature.
Everything that these two dolts say about ethanol is incorrect. From historical perspectives, they are wrong. From scientific perspectives, they are incorrect. From health and safety perspectives, they are promoting deadly diseases and environmental damage. From all mechanical perspectives, they are erroneous, and from any economic perspective their comments are bankrupt!
Moreover, it appears they have no reliable personal experience with engine fuels and automobiles to draw on for their opinions. It's almost as if they spent their lives as casual passengers in motor vehicles rather than as owners/operators.
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The problem with McKenna's and Lee's ignorance is not just that they are hopelessly stupid; after all, there are many, many hopelessly stupid people in the world - for example, just last night I was watching a news-style TV show and a woman in her early twenties was asked who was America's first president. Her response was: Bill Clinton.
The real problem with McKenna's and Lee's stupidity is that there is no excuse for it. They are not Millennials; they are not recent arrivals to our shores; and they don't appear to suffer from any debilitating head injuries. The one other possible explanation for their schmucky comments is that they are being paid to portray village idiots. This doesn't excuse the lies and false details that they claim, but it explains why they would do this to their fellow Americans and our country.
Today is September 1, 2026. On October 13, 2010 - a smidge less than 16 years ago - the United States Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA) publicly announced that our government laboratories have proved E15 ethanol-gasoline blends are safe to use in all spark-ignited internal combustion engine vehicles, and that based on these findings, they (the EPA) are approving the use of E15 blends, just as they did some years earlier with E10. At the same time, during the same 2010 public press conference, the EPA gave tacit approval to E20. I know this for certain because I participated in the live conference, and I was the one who asked the question that led to the EPA tacit approval of E20. If you'd like to hear it for yourself, watch the video below.
All of this becomes even more suspicious when you consider that Brazil - a country with all the same vehicles on the road as we have in America - has been mandating the use of at least E15 since the 1970s, and a year ago Brazil moved its mandate to E30 and higher ethanol-gasoline blends.
We know the reasons why McKenna and Lee have presented false information (their stupidity and/or patronage, or perhaps even graft). But what is the reason for so many of our fellow citizens to be so ignorant about ethanol fuel that the ethanol-opposition scam can exist and prosper?
The reason is that the primary ethanol fuel advocacy groups and lobbyists have failed to do their jobs. Renewable Fuel Association, Growth Energy, National Corn Growers Association, and many other organizations have taken billions of dollars from farmers and distillery owners to promote and expand the use of ethanol fuel, to educate the public, and to provide our politicians with the necessary tools to make the right choices when considering the cleanest, safest, healthiest, and most economical fuels for America. Pursuant to the 2010 EPA approval of E15, if Barack Obama led his administration to unfetter the use of E15 and E20 in the 6 years left in his administration, then it could have been said that the ethanol advocacy groups were successful. But despite Obama's grandiose promises for clean energy sources, and the E15 EPA approval, nothing changed. We remain hostage to the poisons of gasoline, with a large majority of the public and political leadership still believing the lies and myths concocted by the petroleum industry a hundred years ago.
If McKenna and Lee had their way, they would end the use of ethanol fuel altogether. They say this very matter-of-factly in their ridiculous anti-ethanol screeds.
It's 16 years after the EPA approved E15 and it's still barely sold across America. It's 16 years after the EPA approved E15 and we're still fighting anti-ethanol idiots and their idiot comments. I'm especially sensitive to this because
I am one of the very few - perhaps the only person - who regularly patrols the Internet and social media outlets responding to the ethanol myths and lies.
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Because the ethanol lobbyists chose to play nice instead of playing to win, they have allowed oil-backed politicians to falsely blame ethanol for high food and fuel prices almost completely unchecked. They have allowed an industry, the agriculture industry that supports hundreds of thousands of rural jobs and offers true American energy independence, to be framed as an artificial burden. My business partner (Bob Gordon) and I have written about the lies and proved our ethanol advocacy time and again via books, videos, TV & radio shows, public appearances, and hundreds of supportive reports over the past two decades.
The ethanol lobbyists have produced some good and useful materials to support ethanol, but the best and most convincing materials have been produced by a rather small cadre of proactive advocates across the country, and we are a part of that group.
Almost seven years ago, I was asked by a few farmer members of the National Corn Growers Association if we could teach the public the truth about ethanol. I said " yes," and told them that we had a comprehensive educational plan ready to do so. Bob Gordon and I were invited to travel to the annual NCGA Conference in St. Louis to present it. We did, and although the individual team members who attended our presentation were very enthusiastic about the program, the organization's officers ignored the plan and did everything they could to avoid implementing it. I subsequently proposed the plan to the other leading ethanol lobbyists. Although they had never been shy to ask us for help, they saw our education program as a threat. Consequently, they chose to remain passive. It is for this reason that I boldly shout:
P.S. As my books, video, TV/radio appearances, and speaking engagements have demonstrated, I am able to back up and prove everything I say about the superiority of ethanol, as well as the inferiority of my opponents' arguments. And, I would be happy to do so at any venue provided to me, regardless of whether the stage is theatrical, educational, or legal.
UPDATE
After I published this editorial on TheAutoChannel.com on September 1st, I sent an email to Michael McKenna so that he would know that I wrote about him. This is what I said:
Hello Mike -
I read your opinion piece that was published on Sunday's Washington Times website. It, along with a report of comments made by Senator Mike Lee of Utah, spurred me on to write an editorial that I published on my company's website.
In my editorial, I write about your editorial and your comments. It's always been my policy to advise people when I write about them in case they wish to add or correct information, or to challenge or applaud my comments. This is why I have sent you this email.
My editorial can be found at:
https://www.theautochannel.com/news/2026/09/01/1709702-behold-ruin-your-passivity-and-compromise-have-wrought.html
I think that in reading my editorial, you will feel I have been too harsh in my comments about you and your opinions. I believe that I wasn't harsh enough, and if my editorial was only about your ignorant bullshit, then I would have really gone to town on
your editorial. But my editorial wasn't really about you; it's about a system that has allowed you to write such absolute crap, and lets the Washington Times get away with publishing it.
I truly hope that your cretinously ignorant comments about ethanol are not a sign of any mental defect, but rather just a result of something less permanent and treatable, such as learning some real facts about the subject matter.
You are welcome to provide any information or rebuttal you would like to make, and we will happily append your comments to my editorial. Additionally, I'm always available for any continuing discussion you might like to have.
I hope you have a wonderful Autumn and enjoyable upcoming holidays.
Sincerely yours.
Marc J. Rauch
Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher
THE AUTO CHANNEL, LLC
Here it is three days later and Mr. McKenna has not responded. Don't you think that if he thought he had anything of value to say, he would have made an effort to say it?