EPA’s E-15 ethanol plan rammed though – won't work in many cars

John from CA says:
April 25, 2012 at 8:15 am
Gail Combs says:
April 25, 2012 at 7:55 am
Agenda 21
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Gail, that doesn’t make sense. The UN can’t dictate jack in the US. Land ownership in the US runs with Allodial Title its related rights. No one has the right to dictate farming practices in the US.
_______________________
After thinking it over I realise you do not understand the “Modern Law Making Process” I am going to use the food laws again since that is what I am very familiar with. However the process works with all the laws the international bureaucrats want to see “Harmonized”
1. The United Nations/World Trade Organization comes up with an Idea. (UN Agenda 21/Sustainability)
2. The “Idea” is sent to a “Working Group” For example the FDA states they are part of the following “Working Groups”

International Harmonization
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/int-laws.html
The harmonization of laws, regulations and standards between and among trading partners requires intense, complex, time-consuming negotiations by CFSAN officials….
Participation in
Codex Alimentarius
Cosmetics International Activities
International Organizations and Standard-Setting Bodies
International Office of Epizootics
International Plant Protection Convention
World Health Organization
Food and Agricultural Organization
Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA)
Joint Meeting on Pesticide Residues
Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Microbiological Risk Assessments
Pan American Health Organization
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

Those Working Groups come up with Standards, Recommendations, and Guidelines, “Model Laws” if you will. The proposed laws are then brought back to various countries and passed. If there is a public out cry like there was against Animal ID then a “Campaign strategy” is used to get the law passed. In the case of food it was a deliberate increase (Doubling) of food borne disease. See: Shielding the Giant: USDA’s ‘Don’t Look, Don’t Know’ Policy
In addition the United Nations NGOs are mobilized to show “grassroots” support for the proposed bill. With the food bill the fight got rather down and dirty. see google’s HR875 stop the hysteria from the NGO side and A Solemn walk through HR 875 plus a commerce clause lawyer weighing in Trojan Horse Law: The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 Unfortunately Trojan horse NGOs like Organic Consumers, La Vida Locavore and Food & Water Watch did the thinking for many Americans. (All three are connected to the UN, I did the research)
The USDA also used the “Delphi Technique” To “Build Consensus” only farmers were awake and it did not work. (Ain’t the internet great?) USDA employing Delphi Technique: Prepare to be Delphi’d! and “Watch out for the Delphi Technique. “Public meetings” are run by highly trained “facillators” things got uncomfortable enough that the USDA brought armed police to the listening session in Kentucky
USING THE DELPHI TECHNIQUE TO BUILD CONSENSUS: How it is leading us away from representative government to an illusion of
citizen participation.
Notice US citizens are completely cut out of the loop It is an UNELECTED bureaucracy that is completely in control. Even the NGOs are really Astroturf.

“Very few of even the larger international NGOs are operationally democratic, in the sense that members elect officers or direct policy on particular issues,” notes Peter Spiro. “Arguably it is more often money than membership that determines influence, and money more often represents the support of centralized elites, such as major foundations, than of the grass roots.” (The CGG has benefited substantially from the largesse of the MacArthur, Carnegie, and Ford Foundations.) http://www.afn.org/~govern/strong.html

(Organic Consumers get a lot of money from the Rockefeller foundations)

There should be a way for people to buy 100% gas if E15 is mandated. Perhaps make the mandate only apply to regular gasoline, and allow stations to sell premium at 100%? But the problem I see with that is that it’s a tax on those with older vehicles who can’t use E15. (The poor.)

A. Scott says:
And I see you’re still touting the work of Patzek and Pimental ridiculous that has been thoroughly discredited many times over.
And yes the tax credit is gone – yet you’re still using it to base your attacks.

No Patzek and Pimental have not been discredited despite your delusions otherwise. I mentioned the tax credit expired, did you fail to read that?
The Ethanol mandate still needs to be abolished so I am free to choose the fuel I wish to use in my car.

_Jim says: @ur momisugly April 25, 2012 at 8:22 am
Can you make reference to an actual part, paragraph or sentence in the UN Agenda 21 document that lays all this out instead of a reference to a 3rd party (and possibly misleading and artful) ‘interpretation’? It’s possible that I may have missed where you linked to the primary document in question here today or in the past; I would hate to see a lot of ppl get ‘wound up’ without seeing first-hand the document detailing the purported erasure of personal property ownership.
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Be happy to, but realize it is written in Lawyerez bafflegab and you have to read between the lines. They are not going to come out and say what they actually plan in public documents. I know you can follow the stuff but I worried others could not if they do not know what they are looking for. BTW Rosa Koire, who I quoted works for the government in California in the area of Eminent Domain takings.

Recognizing the global nature of these issues, the international community, in convening Habitat II, has decided that a concerted global approach could greatly enhance progress towards achieving these goals. Unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, particularly in industrialized countries, environmental degradation, demographic changes, widespread and persistent poverty, and social and economic inequality can have local, cross-national and global impacts. The sooner communities, local governments and partnerships among the public, private and community sectors join efforts to create comprehensive, bold and innovative strategies for shelter and human settlements, the better the prospects will be for the safety, health and well-being of people and the brighter the outlook for solutions to global environment and social problems. [Smart Growth is the innovative strategies for shelter and human settlements gc]
…The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development – the Earth Summit – held at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992, produced Agenda 21. At that Conference, the international community agreed on a framework for the sustainable development of human settlements…. The Global Strategy for Shelter to the Year 2000, adopted in 1988, which emphasizes the need for improved production and delivery of shelter, revised national housing policies and an enabling strategy, offers useful guidelines for the realization of adequate shelter for all in the next century. [This is the boiler plate building codes and zoning laws dumped on cities and towns gc]
….involvement for civil society actors, for publicprivate partnerships, [this is International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) gc] and for decentralized, participatory planning and management, which are important features of a successful urban future. Cities and towns have been engines of growth and incubators of civilization and have facilitated the evolution of knowledge, culture and tradition, as well as of industry and commerce. Urban settlements, properly planned and managed, hold the promise for human development and the protection of the world’s natural resources through their ability to support large The Habitat Agenda Goals and Principles, Commitments and the Global Plan of Action numbers of people while limiting their impact on the natural environment. [This is moving people into cities so their impact on nature is minimal gc] The growth of cities and towns causes social, economic and environmental changes that go beyond city boundaries. Habitat II deals with all settlements – large, medium and small – and reaffirms the need for universal improvements in living and working conditions…
http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/1176_6455_The_Habitat_Agenda.pdf
http://www.unhabitat.org/

Agenda21
Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.
http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/

Integrated planning and management of land resources is the subject of chapter 10 of Agenda 21, which deals with the cross-sectoral aspects of decision-making for the sustainable use and development of natural resources, including the soils, minerals, water and biota that land comprises. This broad integrative view of land resources, which are essential for life-support systems and the productive capacity of the environment, is the basis of Agenda 21’s and the Commission on Sustainable Development’s consideration of land issues.
Expanding human requirements and economic activities are placing ever increasing pressures on land resources, creating competition and conflicts and resulting in suboptimal use of resources. By examining all uses of land in an integrated manner, it makes it possible to minimize conflicts, to make the most efficient trade-offs and to link social and economic development with environmental protection and enhancement, [Smart Growth gc] thus helping to achieve the objectives of sustainable development. (Agenda 21, para 10.1)
http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/susdevtopics/sdt_land.shtml

….Governments at the appropriate level, with the support of the relevant international and regional organizations, should:
(a) Carry out national policy reviews related to food security, including adequate levels and stability of food supply and access to food by all households;
(b) Review national and regional agricultural policy in relation, inter alia, to foreign trade, price policy, exchange rate policies, agricultural subsidies and taxes, as well as organization for regional economic integration;
(c) Implement policies to influence land tenure and property rights positively with due recognition of the minimum size of land-holding required to maintain production and check further fragmentation… [There is your no more building in rural areas gc]
(h) Formulate and implement integrated agricultural projects that include other natural resource activities, such as management of rangelands, forests, and wildlife, as appropriate; [Complete control of land use sounds like to me gc]
United Nations agencies, such as FAO, the World Bank, IFAD and GATT, and regional organizations, bilateral donor agencies and other bodies should, within their respective mandates, assume a role in working with national Governments in the following activities:….
D. Land-resource planning, information and education for agriculture
Basis for action
14.34. Inappropriate and uncontrolled land uses are a major cause of degradation and depletion of land resources. Present land use often disregards the actual potentials, carrying capacities and limitations of land resources, as well as their diversity in space. [Sure sounds like I just lost the right to my property if I do not control the use gc] It is estimated that the world’s population, now at 5.4 billion, will be 6.25 billion by the turn of the century. The need to increase food production to meet the expanding needs of the population will put enormous pressure on all natural resources, including land….
Objectives
14.36. The objectives of this programme area are:
(a) To harmonize planning procedures, involve farmers [Sop to “Land Owners” gc] in the planning process, collect land-resource data, design and establish databases, define land areas of similar capability, identify resource problems and values that need to be taken into account to establish mechanisms to encourage efficient and environmentally sound use of resources;
Basis for action
14.44. Land degradation is the most important environmental problem affecting extensive areas of land in both developed and developing countries. The problem of soil erosion is particularly acute in developing countries, while problems of salinization, waterlogging, soil pollution and loss of soil fertility are increasing in all countries. Land degradation is serious because the productivity of huge areas of land is declining just when populations are increasing rapidly and the demand on the land is growing to produce more food, fibre and fuel. Efforts to control land degradation, particularly in developing countries, have had limited success to date. Well planned, long-term national and regional land conservation and rehabilitation programmes, with strong political support and adequate funding, are now needed. While land-use planning and land zoning, combined with better land management, should provide long-term solutions, it is urgent to arrest land degradation and launch conservation and rehabilitation programmes in the most critically affected and vulnerable areas.
(b) To establish agricultural planning bodies at national and local levels to decide priorities, channel resources and implement programmes. [Sure sounds like what they did in the USSR doesn’t it? gc]
http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_14.shtml

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Public-private partnerships need a special mention. Like “Sustainability” and “Smart Growth” it is one of the key phrases to look for.
Examples:
http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/innovfinance/Public-Private%20Partnerships/PPP_main.html
http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/OIPP/docs/solar_partners.pdf
The Redevelopment Agency connection to “Sustainability” http://www.calredevelop.org/
President’s Council on Sustainable Development: Between June 1993 and June 1999, the PCSD has advised President Clinton on sustainable development and develops bold, new approaches to achieve economic, environmental, and equity goals. http://clinton2.nara.gov/PCSD/
USDA Director of Sustainable Development: http://www.usda.gov/oce/sustainable/index.htm
This newest Biofuel mandate ties into the Policy Resolution on the. 25 x ’25 Initiative.
The 25 by ’25 resolution expresses the sense of the Congress that by the year 2025, at least 25 percent of total U.S. energy will come from renewable, domestically produced sources.
search [“25 x 25” Sustainable Development Resolution] and you will find a lot of info. such as Midwestern governors have been national leaders in the effort to produce more homegrown energy… : http://www.midwesterngovernors.org/resolutions/25×25.pdf
The whole mess is like a can of worms… No make that Cottonmouth Water Moccasins.

A. Scott says:
More simply false statement unsupported by fact. And your concern for farmers is touching. I suggest you try farming for your food sometime.

I have no concern for those who are too incompetent to farm profitably. The competent farmers will gladly take their market share. I am not interested in propping up failure.

The facts are ethanol reduces the cost of gasoline significantly:

This is elementary to test, as those filling stations that continue to sell the ethanol blends should easily put those who sell straight gasoline out of business. You thus obviously support ending the mandate so you can prove empirically how much it really saves!
Why are ethanol supporters so afraid of proving their claims?

Poptech says:
April 25, 2012 at 5:10 pm
Even with the right kind of foam, fighting a polar solvent fire is no cake walk. I remember a burning 160-foot diameter storage tank in Texas City. Even with a foam blanket six to eight feet deep, flames were still visible. It took four days to bring that one under control.“

I am stunned to learn large fires are hard to put out, even with the best equipment they sometimes take days to control. /sarc
I do get a chuckle out of your quoted article where it says:
“Unlike alcohol, it has a red visible flame.”
News flash ethanol is an alcohol, and fuel ethanol which is what we are talking about here is denatured with from 2%-5% hydrocarbon denaturants and has an easily visible flame not the pale flame color of pure technical ethanol.
The same exact problem occurs with large petroleum tank fires. In Nov 1990 Stapleton International airport had a fuel farm fire (JP4) that took 2 days to put out and they were bringing in truck loads of foam from cities within 100 miles of the fire and even eventually contracted with the Red Adair fire fighting team to help knock it down by bringing in specialized equipment and of course their experience.
It is a cost of doing business with large accumulations of any flammable liquid, there is nothing particularly unique about fuel ethanol fires, it is just another chemical fire risk that has its own unique fire fighting challenges just like every other flammable chemical be it petroleum, keytones like acetone, natural flammable liquids like turpentine or alcohol. In many cases the control strategy of choice in these large flammable liquid fires is to let them burn out as even the largest municipal fire departments have difficulty controlling them promptly.
source FAA report
“AVIATION ACCIDENT REPORT
FUEL FARM FIRE AT
STAPLETON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
DENVER, COLORADO
NOVEMBER 25,199O”

Larry

Roger Sowell says:
April 25, 2012 at 2:41 pm
I hope to persuade you. I will have more time to respond more completely this evening.
What must be considered is the US position on the world stage, and the utter futility of waging a war without adequate oil supplies. Both Japan and Germany learned this lesson the hard way, in the early 1940s.
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As I recall you do not like nuclear either not even thorium. If you do not want to use oil (I consider it a wast of a great chemical precursor) then you should at least look at the pros and cons of thorium.
E. M. Smith’s comment on Thorium: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/21/the-moon-and-sick-plans/#comment-964024

Here’s what we are up against folks. In the EPA’s own words. Video included in article:
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Quote:
“It was kind of like how the Romans used to, you know, conquer villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go in to a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them.
“Then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”
“It’s a deterrent factor,” Armendariz said, explaining that the EPA is following the Romans’ philosophy for subjugating conquered villages.
http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/epa-officials-philosophy-oil-companies-crucify-them-just-romans-crucified
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Now I don’t know about anyone else, but them’s fightin’ words to me. I don’t give shit about “hyperbole” excuses for this. The EPA and this administration is the enemy. Not because I say so, but because they say so. Treat them as such.

Poptech says:
April 25, 2012 at 4:42 pm

A. Scott says:
And I see you’re still touting the work of Patzek and Pimental ridiculous that has been thoroughly discredited many times over.

No Patzek and Pimental have not been discredited despite your delusions otherwise.

Laughable.

In June 2004, the U.S. Department of Agriculture updated its 2002 analysis of ethanol production and determined that the net energy balance of ethanol production is 1.67 to 1
For every 100 BTUs of energy used to make ethanol, 167 BTUs of ethanol is produced. In 2002, USDA had concluded that the ratio was 1.35 to 1. The USDA findings have been confirmed by additional studies conducted by the University of Nebraska and Argonne National Laboratory. These figures take into account the energy required to plant, grow and harvest the corn—as well as the energy required to manufacture and distribute the ethanol.
Ethanol opponents frequently cite studies by Cornell niversity’s Dr. David Pimentel and Tad W. Padzek, who concluded that ethanol returns only about 70% of the energy used in its production (a net energy balance of -29%). Pimentel’s findings ave been consistently refuted by USDA and other scientists who say his methodology uses obsolete data and is fundamentally unsound. In a detailed analysis of Pimentel’s research, Dr. Michael S. Graboski
of Colorado School of Mines says Pimentel’s findings are based on out-of-date statistics (22 year-old data) and are contradicted by USDA.
Pimentel’s reports have also been debunked by Michael Wang and Dan Santini of the Center for Transportation Research, Argonne National Laboratory, who conducted a series of detailed analyses on energy and emission impacts of corn ethanol from 1997 through 1999.
A recent study by UC scientists, published in the January, 2006 edition of Science magazine, also acknowledges a positive net energy balance for ethanol, placing the energy return at between 4 and 9 MJ/L.
Furthermore, even the most pessimistic assessments of ethanol’s energy balance acknowledge that ethanol is an improvement over petroleum-based fuels. Using the same analytical methods employed by some ethanol critics, Michigan State University’s Bruce Dale calculates the net energy of petroleum to be -45%, compared to the -29% that Pimentel and Patzek find for ethanol. In the worst-case scenario, burning ethanol is still more energy-efficient than burning gasoline.

“Unfortunately, his (Pimentel’s) assessment lacked timeliness in that it relied on data appropriate to conditions in the 1970’s and early 1980s, but clearly not the 1990s…With up-todate information on corn farming and ethanol production and treating ethanol co-products fairly, we have concluded that corn-based ethanol now has a positive energy balance of about 20,000 BTU per gallon.”
– Michael Wang and Dan Santini

Excepting Pimentel & Patzek, the values of [corn ethanol’s return on energy investment] range from 1.29 to 1.65 for current technology, indicating that corn ethanol is returning at least some renewable energy on its fossil energy investment. Pimentel & Patzek’s result of [return on investment] <1 is an exception
– Hammerschlag, “Ethanol’s Energy Return on Investment: A Survey of the Literature,
1990 – Present,” in Environmental Science and Technology 40:6 (2006).

Two of the studies stand out from the others because they report negative net energy values and imply relatively high GHG missions and petroleum inputs…these two studies also stand apart from the others by incorrectly assuming that ethanol coproducts…should not be credited with any of the input energy and by including some input data that are old and unrepresentative of current processes, or so poorly documented that their quality cannot be evaluated
– Farrell, et al, “Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals,” in Science 311
(January 2006).

Dr. Pimentel’s corn yield statistics date from 1992, meaning that the study does not take into account recent advances in the efficiency of corn growing. Corn yields have increased by over
10% since then with significantly lower inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides, etc., per bushel… Dr. Pimentel’s figures for energy used in the ethanol conversion process date from 1979. Today’s ethanol plants use far less energy per gallon of ethanol produced.
– Environmental and Energy Study Institute, October 2003

Pimentel & Patzek’s results [for the energy balance of cellulosic ethanol production] stand out, at nearly an order of magnitude larger values for nonrenewable energy inputs than the other three studies. The reason for the difference is that Pimentel & Patzek assume that industrial process energy is generated by fossil fuel combustion and electricity, rather than by lignin combustion. All well-developed models of cellulosic production generate industrial energy with lignin combustion. The other three research teams, all of whom assume this, are highly credible
– Hammerschlag, “Ethanol’s Energy Return on Investment: A Survey of the Literature,
1990 – Present,” in Environmental Science and Technology 40:6 (2006).

“Patzek worked for Shell Oil Company as a researcher, consultant and expert witness. He founded and directs the UC Oil Consortium, which is mainly funded by the oil industry at the rate of $60,000 to $120,000 per company per year.”
-www.journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html

“The finished liquid fuel energy yield for fossil fuel dedicated to the production of ethanol is 1.34, but only 0.74 for gasoline. In other words, the energy yield of ethanol is (1.34/.74) or 81 percent greater than the comparable yield for gasoline.”
– Minnesota Department of Agriculture

“The available energy from ethanol is much higher than the input energy for producing ethanol. In other words, using ethanol as a liquid transportation fuel would significantly reduce domestic use of petroleum even in the worst case scenario.”
– Michigan State University

Corn ethanol is energy efficient…Moreover, producing ethanol from domestic corn stocks achieves a net gain in a more desirable form of energy. Ethanol production utilizes abundant domestic energy supplies of coal and natural gas to convert corn into a premium liquid fuel that can replace petroleum imports by a factor of 7 to 1.
– Shapouri, Duffield, and Graboski, “Estimating the Net Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol,” 1995

Even the most pessimistic estimate of corn ethanol’s [return on energy investment] (Pimentel & Patzek at…0.84) is higher than the [return on investment] for gasoline, so it seems safe to say that corn ethanol reduces fossil fuel consumption when used to displace gasoline.
– Hammerschlag, “Ethanol’s Energy Return on Investment: A Survey of the Literature, 3
1990 – Present,” in Environmental Science and Technology 40:6 (2006).

Just a small sampling from an old report.
Among many issues including using old data, Patzek and Pimentel also failed to include co-products in their calculations – attributing all of the production energy to ethanol.
Both Patzek and Pimentel also really are are in the paid employ of oil companies.
Their work has been repeatedly refuted and show deficient by many sources including the USDA, Argonne Labs, US Dept of Energy, Colorado School of Mines, University of California, Michigan University and many others including in peer reviewed work published in major publications such as Science, environmental Science and Technology, and others.

Curiousgeorge says:
April 25, 2012 at 6:16 pm
Here’s what we are up against folks. In the EPA’s own words.
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Time to craft some PSAs — this is out of control.