Bills introduced to mandate E85 pumps, cut oil tax breaks, $7,500 PHEV credit
One of the key elements to the success of ethanol as a fuel in Brazil has been the requirement for all filling stations to have at least one ethanol pump and it looks like the U.S. Congress may finally be pushing for this as well. Currently, only about 1,700 of the nation's 170,000 gas stations have an ethanol pump and so many of the millions of flex-fuel vehicle drivers out there couldn't use E85 even if they wanted to. However, while mandating more ethanol availability is a good idea in principle, until cellulosic ethanol becomes commercially available, it would be counter-productive to have so many ethanol pumps. There isn't enough ethanol to feed that many outlets anyway right now. A separate Senate bill introduced by Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Max Baucus, D-Mont, also addresses energy policy. The bill would apparently cut back on the tax breaks that big oil companies get and use at least some of that money to fund consumer tax credits of up to $7,500 for plug-in vehicles. Meanwhile House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has committed to inserting funding for $25 billion in federally guaranteed loans to automakers to help pay for the transition to more efficient vehicles. That funding will be attached to some bill that is guaranteed to pass and be signed by the president.
[Source: Detroit News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
David Baltzer 9:23PM (9/12/2008)
ABG readers really need to email or call their Senators and Congressional Reps to support these bills.
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James Sonne 9:05AM (9/13/2008)
I think exactly the opposite is the case. As commenters below rightly point out, not only does E85 give you less gas mileage and emit the same amount of pollutants, it raises the cost of the food we eat, and the fertilizers used to grow the crops release nitrates into the atmosphere, which are 147 times the green-house gas of carbon dioxide. Aside from that, E85 is already subsidized like crazy, the maximum amount we can grow on the surface of the planet doesn't even cover US gasoline usage needs ( ... which, if we covered the planet with crops for E85, there would be no roads :-P).
Bioethanol is a nightmare of forced legislation and socialist contrivance, and only makes the situation worse.
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CNCMike 11:47AM (9/15/2008)
"not only does E85 give you less gas mileage and emit the same amount of pollutants, it raises the cost of the food we eat,"
Actually over 80% of all corn grown in this country goes to animal feed and if you build engines to run on ethanol they will give you about 15 to 20% better mileage than an equivalent gas engine. Also compared to gas it reduces pollutants about 98% if made and burned properly/
CNCMike 12:44PM (9/15/2008)
Forgot to mention that if you use corn to make ethanol(sugar cane and sugar beets are better choices) what is left over is actually better animal feed that produces more meat and cheese than the corn would have so it should actually lower food costs as far as meat and dairy are concerned.
tankd0g 8:24PM (9/12/2008)
$7500!? Are they on crack? GM lobby must have been down on it's knees all night for that one. So the hollywood types get their latest smug mobile AND they get a rebate of your tax dollars equivalent to what I spend on my last car. And on top of that, $25 BILLION to automakers to do what the market was already forcing them to do? USA is truly a socialist paradise, if you happen to be a corporation.
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Mike Z. 9:41PM (9/12/2008)
A mandated ethanol pump at every gas station. Pure stupidity plain and simple.
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jpm100 10:09PM (9/12/2008)
Because the right thing to do is stick with a single product (oil) that counts on good weather in the Gulf and stability in the Middle East. Those things will never go wrong, ever.
Snowdog 11:41PM (9/12/2008)
The right thing certainly isn't to stack boondoggles on top of each other.
You have a massive ethanol boondoggle annual government handout of 7 billion dollars of taxpayer money. That is over $200 per US citizen, every man woman and child robbed of $200 to feed to corn lobby.
What you get for that money. You get forced to have this crud mixed in your gas, which lowers your fuel mileage, you get more environmental degradation and you get higher food prices.
Gee Sound like a good deal, first you pay for the subsidy, then you spend more on fuel because you get poorer mileage, they you spend more on food... Freaking brilliant.
Next GM bellies up to the trough(Other Domestics as well, but GM is the poster boy), because they get CAFE credits for swilling high test boondoggle. This way GM doesn't actually have to meet CAFE standards, or they get keep tens of millions of dollars in would be fines. Since credits are capped based on the amount of E85 stations, GM lobbies like mad for more taxpayer being spent on pumps, so GM gets to keep more taxpayer money, and keep making less efficient cars. Brilliant. How do they manage to convince some people that aren't being bribed that this is a good idea? Oh yeah it will cut down a bit on fuel usage, as would more efficient cars, the more efficient cars that GM doesn't have to build because the get Corn Boondoggle credits... Sweet.
But hey 25Billion bailouts added to this isn't enough, let us throw in a "Volt" Tax credit for GM while we are at it.
This stuff is so crazy you couldn't make it up, it certainly shows that buying off politicians is still alive and well.
BoneHeadOtto 12:02AM (9/13/2008)
Agreed! Ethanol is a horrible product. It consumes enormous amounts of water in production, causes food prices to rise, and once in our cars it really doesnt cost that much less and it very significantly decreases gas mileage. Plus it is damaging our small engines such as yard equipment. Oh yeah and the big one. It CANNOT be transported via pipelines. That means we have to ship it everywhere by truck or train thus burning even more fuel in transportation. Ethanol has no redeeming qualities.
Mike Z 10:44PM (9/12/2008)
The best case for ethanol is about ~36 billion gallons a year. We consume about ~40 billion gallons of diesel a year.
Ask yourself, how many gas stations sell diesel?
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JDred 9:04AM (9/13/2008)
I noticed that according to SPeaker Pelosi it would be "guaranteed" to pass if it were attached to another spending bill.
Can you say "Earmarks" boys and girls?
Enough of this! if it's such great an idea then let it stand on it's own merits! The obvious problem is, there are none.
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J Lovshe 9:42AM (9/13/2008)
GM 's sudden stewardship of the environment is simply a way to continue to make gas guzzlers thanks to E85 an extremely inefficient fuel. The CAFE standards call for all car companies to achieve an average MPG for all vehicles. I believe the most recent number is 27 MPG. Well if you make the biggest money off of 10 miles per gallon SUV's you would hate to say good bye to them wouldn't you?
The CAFE standards has a loophole, that being that an E85 vehicle operating on E85 miles per gallon are ONLY figured against the actual amount of gasoline in the blend (15%) if you divide 100% fuel by 15% gasoline you get the multiplier to the mpg (666) therefore a gas guzzling 10 MPG SUV is given credit for 66.6 MPG. If you sell one SUV like this you can have 5 vehicles only achieving 20 MPG and this gas guzzling SUV and you average more than 27 MPG overall while not one of their vehicles really met the standard.
GM is not the only one taking advantage of this free ride Ford and Chrysler are too. The big three are heading down the toilet and this is just their hands clinging to the rim.
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gorr 11:21AM (9/13/2008)
They exactly put in practice all over the world policies that im opposing and they didn't or impede policies, like many chatters here too, that im supporting. The trick is to know that there is sufficient ressources here on earth for 60 billions peoples, maybe more but peoples and goverments oppose that and suggests some castastrophy instead because they feel they are not productive. It's a philosophic war, good technologies exists in quantity but people don't feel they deserve it.
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Joseph 2:22PM (9/13/2008)
"Meanwhile House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has committed to inserting funding for $25 billion in federally guaranteed loans to automakers to help pay for the transition to more efficient vehicles. That funding will be attached to some bill that is guaranteed to pass and be signed by the president."
Woah! Did anyone notice this? Isn't a big deal that the government is going to give the auto comapnies a 25 BILLION dollar loan? This deserves its own post.
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Bill 3:27PM (9/13/2008)
With several hundred thousand votes at stake, you can bet either party would be glad to "loan" $100 billion to domestic automakers.
SteveCT 1:08PM (9/13/2008)
They can install all the E85 pumps they want. I still won't buy the stuff, and anyone who has a grain of sense won't either. In the end, the market will kill off the worthless shit like ethanol and hydrogen and leave only the viable alternatives to gasoline cars standing.
As batteries come down in price due to increases in PHEV and EREV production, and new advances make longer-lasting, faster-charging, higher-energy-density batteries possible, we will see BEVs and EV quick-charge stations take over the market. This may not solve our climate woes (after all, coal is incredibly cheap), but it will solve our gas-price woes. I just hope this idiot country doesn't elect Dumbass McGee and his sidekick PsychoBitch, 'cause if we do, our country will go bankrupt long before EVs start taking over the roads.
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fnc 3:38PM (9/13/2008)
Fairies and butterflies aren't going to swoop down and magically deposit an E85 pump in each and every gas station, that's for sure. You and I filling up our tank at the conventional gas pump next to it will be footing the bill for it. And it'll proceed to sit there like an expensive piece of sculptural tribute to failed government policy when there just isn't any ethanol to go into the storage tank beneath it.
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ltclloyd 1:23AM (9/14/2008)
Lets get the stuff out there, I've used over 300 gallons of E85 while setting up and tuning my car. the mileage loss is not all that bad (10%) I know people resist change. A unlimited market will fast lane the $1.00 per gallon celulostic plants up and running. It's a chicken or the egg problem. I am in the process of going Tri-fuel Adding natural gas to my arsenal. Don't buy the hype put out by the oil companies. Ethanol is not all bad, check the facts. we are producing more Corn then ever for food even after you take the ethanol earmarked corn out of the mix, it is cleaner.. I'm a Florida resident and would love the local economic boost if part of that 700billion a year could go to my local sugar farmers. since the C02 is used by the plants growing there is a HUGE net carbon advantage. we need a mix of alternatives, I know it's "in fashion" to hate ethanol. but it works and we need the options. the fact that it IS cleaner higher octane, and better for the car.. (no soot), and emits A LOT less carcinogens over petrol.
I'm shocked even amongst a group of supposedly educated ABG readers there is so much incorrect anti-ethanol crud being repeated, and repeated, and repeated.. until people start to believe it. even if you don't see the environmental advantage there is no denying it helps control fuel prices.
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Paul Sallmen 3:13AM (9/14/2008)
ltclloyd said..: "I'm shocked even amongst a group of supposedly educated ABG readers there is so much incorrect anti-ethanol crud being repeated, and repeated, and repeated"
Actually I believe that a lot of the readers are very educated and they quite correctly should be guarded about the viability of ethanol. The comments about the fact that ethanol requires so much fertilizer (and therefore fossil fuels), has to be trucked, fuel economy worsens (less energy storage), has increased food costs and aggravated poverty in developing countries, are all valid questions to ask. The topic of cellulostic ethanol could be a viable alternative as it would entail changing garbage to ethanol. However, I question the scale of putting an E85 tank all across America. What if the market never really develops for E85? In Canada, we have a lot of E85 capable vehicles (only big 3 - I notice the Japanese and German manufacturers have not bought into E85), but not an E85 pump in sight. A more reasonable solution would be to try a sampling of E85 pumps in a few urban areas. If cellulostic ethanol becomes a reality, then maybe it could be expanded. However, if the market for E85 shrivels up, taxpayers will only be stuck paying for a few E85 pumps in a few isolated areas, not across the whole country!
As for the $7500 subsidy for the Volt, yes, I do agree it is rather high. Perhaps a subsidy more inline with Hybrids, or perhaps, just slightly higher. However if the Volt does prove to be reliable (as the Toyota Prius), it will sell (even without the subsidy) in progressively increasing numbers as the years go by. I hope it will be a success.
I agree with an above poster that GM should go high end with EVs like Tesla. I think a Corvette EV would sell in light numbers as a niche vehicle (much like Tesla's Roadster). GM wouldn't necessarily make a lot of money initially, but they would gain valuable real world experience about EVs. Then they could expand to a Cadillac EV. This would also improve GM's PR image which as been tarnished (to say the least!) about how they treated their EV1s.
tinyB 10:26AM (9/14/2008)
Ethanol is not THE solution to our dependence on foreign oil, but it is a viable part of the solution. Right now oil companies are clearly not interested in expanding the availability of E85. You're all looking at things as they are now. Sure there are problems with producing ethanol from grain, but what about cellulosic ethanol? That's where the future of ethanol lies. If we (an WE are the government) don't take measures to encourage E85 availability then there won't be any incentive to develop cellulosic ethanol, and we will continue with the same old status quo dependence on buying oil from countries that support terrorists. Gee, that sure sounds like the way I want to go. Pull your heads out of the sand, people!
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