Lies and Big Oil Fiction

by Bob Dinneen (Renewable Fuels Association/Ethanol Producer Magazine) Biofuel critics will continue to distort the truth to fit their own narrative, but you can bet the ethanol industry will hit back with the truth each and every time. -- Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Ethanol is singularly responsible for the dead zone in the Gulf or the destruction of bee pollinator habitats or is destroying wetlands across America or is a dirtier fuel than gasoline. Those are just some of the lies making the rounds on Capitol Hill these days. None of them are true, of course, but they are the fodder our critics seize upon to fuel the campaign against us. At one point this year, I actually read that the renewable fuel standard (RFS) and ethanol were harming the food industry by driving down prices. Yes, after years of being blamed for driving up the price of food, we’re now also responsible for their lost profits as food prices fall. Unbelievable.

As we near the close of the 114th Congress, I thought I would share some of the more outrageous fallacies used by ethanol’s critics on Capitol Hill to sow the seeds of doubt and undermine support for the RFS.

Falsehood No. 3: The blend wall—The U.S. gasoline market cannot absorb more than 9.7 percent ethanol. ... READ MORE and MORE (The Log) and MORE (New Orleans Times-Picayune) and MORE (The Daily Iberian)