The solid science behind E15

{mosads}Countries like Iran, Venezuela and Libya have all manipulated OPEC to keep gas prices high in the United States, putting pressure on our economy. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus recently said that every $10 increase in the cost of a barrel of oil adds more than $300 million to what the Navy pays annually for fuel.

And yet, in his op-ed published July 26 in The Hill, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) ignores the physical, economic and national security costs of our nation’s continued dependence on foreign oil. Instead, he picks politics over science in an attack on the Environmental Protection Agency for green-lighting the only commercially-viable competitor we have to foreign oil today: American ethanol.

Increasing market access to homegrown, renewable ethanol can reduce the power OPEC exerts over our economy. Every gallon of clean burning ethanol that we produce in this country decreases the demand for foreign oil and keeps U.S. money in the U.S. economy, where it can create U.S. jobs.

That’s why a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to allow American consumers increased access to domestic ethanol in our fuel supply is so important. Ethanol is cleaner and more energy efficient to produce than gasoline refined from oil. And, according to a white paper by Ambassador C. Boyden Gray, ethanol “saves tens of thousands of lives annually” because its use as an octane enhancer reduces the need for carcinogenic aromatics – like benzene, toluene and xylene – to be added to gasoline.

By EPA’s own estimates, grain ethanol is a low-carbon fuel that is cleaner than gasoline refined from oil. Simply moving to E15 would cut emissions equivalent to taking 1.35 million cars from the road, displace as much as 7 billion gallons of gasoline and create 136,000 jobs. At a time when unemployment is still more than nine percent, every job we have in the U.S. is a significant job.

Mr. Sensenbrenner would have you believe that EPA’s decision was based on politics instead of science. That is simply not the case. There has been more testing of E15 than any other fuel blend in the history of the Clean Air Act. EPA’s role was solely to determine whether E15 was a suitable fuel for today’s cars and emissions systems, and only after the completion of this exhaustive testing did the EPA approve E15 for cars 2001 and newer – in other words, all the automobile models it tested. And, E15 is not mandatory, it is voluntary.

Rep. Sensenbrenner makes these claims based on testimony delivered to the House Science Committee – testimony which failed to include any ethanol producers, and which relied heavily on testimony from the chicken industry. As Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis was quoted in response to the idea of relying on the poultry industry to deliver judgment on ethanol: “That’s like asking Colonel Sanders to weigh in on nuclear disarmament.”

The truth is that the House Science Committee missed an opportunity to get straight answers. Here’s one that dispels myths about E15 as a fuel: every weekend, NASCAR’s three racing series use Sunoco Green E15. NASCAR’s use of the fuel puts E15 through the most rigorous and grueling conditions. If it is good enough for those drivers, in those conditions, it is good enough for everyday cars and light trucks.

Ethanol’s contributions to our nation are undeniable, but the American consumers will never be able to benefit from the cleaner air, the job creation and the national security if Congress blocks their access to greater blends of American-made ethanol.

Gen. Wesley K. Clark, former NATO Supreme Commander, is the Co-Chairman of Growth Energy, an organization of ethanol supporters.