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Biden Says E15 OK in the Summertime

If you like ethanol, you gotta like Joe Biden. The President went to the Poet ethanol plant in Menlo, Iowa, yesterday to announce that, to fight the rising fuel prices caused by pandemic recovery and Russian aggression, he’s temporarily lifting the ban on selling gasoline with 15% ethanol during the summer:

Biden said the move is “not going to solve all our problems, but it’s going to help some people. And I’m committed to do whatever I can to help — even if it’s an extra buck or two in their pockets as they fill up — to make a difference in people’s lives.”

…”I’m doing everything within my power by executive orders to bring down the prices and address the Putin price hike,” Biden said. “In fact, we’ve already made progress since March inflation data was collected. Your family budget — your ability to fill up your tank — none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide half a world away.”

Biden admitted that E15 fuel is available only “at a few thousand pumps today,” but said the U.S. will invest $100 million in biofuel infrastructure. E15 gas is currently available at about 2,300 fueling stations, according to the Department of Energy [Eric McDaniel, “Biden Will Ease Restrictions on Higher-Ethanol Fuel as Inflation Hits a 40-Year High,” NPR, 2022.04.12].

Corn futures rose in anticipation of President Biden’s ethanol-friendly announcement. But using more corn to fuel our cars to raise the price of using corn to feed our cows, which in turn will raise the price of our corned-beef sandwiches. Hmmm… maybe we could save more money if we biked to the deli….

21 Comments

  1. larry kurtz 2022-04-13 12:42

    It takes 2500 gallons of fossil water from the Great Plains aquifer, diesel fuel, time, insurance and subsidies to grow a bushel of corn. How is that either conservative or sustainable?

  2. 96Tears 2022-04-13 14:27

    Hey, Kristi Noem! Go big or go home!

    Hi there, kitten. Ol’ 96 here with a goof-proof plan to look presidential on the heels of President Biden’s visit to Menlo, Iowa.

    You’ve got great relations with POET. They’re South Dakota Republicans. Just grab Jeff Broin by the lapels and haul him over to the podium with you to announce:

    “I’m here to tell ya, Sleepy Joe Biden got it half right by saying we can stop the pain caused by the Russian oil shutdown by using 15 percent ethanol in American gasoline. I am here ya we can do twice as much for the ethanol producers and the corn farmers of the Dakotas and Iowa. I am here to tell ya that as President, we will be using 30 percent ethanol in American gas tanks and put a stake right through Vlad Putin’s heart.”

    That’s right, princess. You would be in solidarity with farmers, ethanol producers, their workers and families, and with the South Dakota Farmers Union and the National Farmers Union. It might just help you in the Iowa primary! Just look at what SDFU President Doug Sombke said in a biofuels panel discussion recently:

    “When this Ukraine invasion happened and talk about $5 gasoline, the first thing I thought was, ‘wouldn’t it be wonderful if every gas pump in the U.S. pumped E30.’” In addition to its U.S.-based production benefits, Sombke went on to share the benefits of E30 as a low carbon, high octane fuel, as well as research detailing its overall health benefits. “When the ethanol industry began, two things we as farmers saw as benefits were good prices and the ability to make a living on the farm without damaging the environment,” Sombke said. “Today, we know that E30 also takes CO2 out of the air and carcinogens out of fuel.”

    https://sdfu.org/national-farmers-union-biofuels-panel-discuss-ethanols-role-today/

    Just say the words, Kristi: “Let’s stake our claim with renewable American energy and make Putin pay the price for his genocide in Ukraine. Who wins at 30 percent ethanol? Iowa farmers win. Midwestern ethanol producers win. Our rural economy wins. The American people win. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s people win.”

    Let’s show how smart a Hamlin County farmgirl can be! Go big Noem, or go home.

  3. larry kurtz 2022-04-13 15:01

    Ethanol has nearly half the energy density of gasoline or diesel and only a third of what natural gas contains but with an immensely larger carbon footprint.

  4. O 2022-04-13 15:29

    Will we now see “I did that” Biden stickers on ethanol pumps now?

  5. larry kurtz 2022-04-13 17:11

    Correction. Ethanol has only two thirds the energy density of gasoline or diesel and less than half of what natural gas contains but has an immensely larger carbon footprint. Nobody farms with gasoline powered equipment and ethanol is being grown with diesel fuel so how is that either conservative or sustainable?

  6. Mark Anderson 2022-04-13 18:29

    Hey boys, if your addicted to something, your addicted to it. Fairly soon Democratic scientists will get us off the pump. Until that, it will be milked for all it’s worth. I said Democratic scientists because the all are. Republican engineers like to pretend they are scientists but to no avail.

  7. larry kurtz 2022-04-13 19:51

    Koch is one of four corporations that control the production and sale of nitrogen-based fertilizer in the US. The others are Yara-USA, CF Industries and Nutrien so the Family Farm Action Alliance, a 501c3 non-profit group has asked the Department of Justice to investigate the avaricious rises in fertilizer prices.

    The United States gets much of its nitrogen fertilizer from Belarus and the Persian Gulf but a Trump era tariff and Hurricane Ida in the Gulf of Mexico slowed the movement of product to markets up and down the Mississippi River. Nitrogen fertilizer is normally applied to subsidized corn then ends right back up in the Gulf of Mexico where it kills whole ecosystems.

    Koch Industries has given loads of cash to Republicans like John Thune.

  8. grudznick 2022-04-13 20:19

    My good friend Lar is righter than right. Mr. Biden has become a fossil fuel fellow, and has sold out to corporate. His Broin is showing bad.

  9. larry kurtz 2022-04-13 20:27

    The Anthropocene is a trophic cascade, humans have altered and continue to alter every food web and the Trump Organization distorted the science to appease Republican ranchers. Reproduction is the reason; food is the fuel. “Modern society” is a product of the forbidden fruit–agriculture.

    Yes, humans are apex predators and predatory capitalism exists because it has no natural enemies.

  10. Edwin Arndt 2022-04-13 20:41

    All green plants do that to a certain extent, Larry.

  11. larry kurtz 2022-04-13 20:42

    The Biden administration has been slow to restore the NEPA rules Earth hating Republicans like South Dakota’s John Thune and Wyoming’s John Barrasso want to suspend. So, as expected, Hulett, Wyoming-based Neiman Enterprises could enjoy the fruits of socialism as the two Republican US Senators introduce a bill to inject taxpayer dollars into the Black Hills timber monopoly. They call the bill, The Save Jim Neiman’s Ass Act. In 2012, Wyoming Public Radio’s News Director Bob Beck began an interview with Senator John Bare Asso (earth hater-WY) asking the question: “Senator, why do you hate the environment?”

    Abolish the Department of Agriculture and merge the US Forest Service with the Bureau of Land Management then rename it the Forest and Land Management Service within the Department of the Interior.

  12. Arlo Blundt 2022-04-13 22:22

    Well…I believe I just read a screed by Senator Thune in my local paper beating the tub for E-15…I’m naturally suspect of the proposition…a potential drought could complicate corn growing this year in the Midwest.

  13. HydroGuy 2022-04-13 23:21

    Joe, you’re pissing into the wind with the overwhelming majority of that crowd. They left the MAGA hats on the dash of their brand new gas-guzzling monster trucks–purchased, by the way, with the billions of dollars in trade war bribes doled out by your predecessor–right next to the Nugent-Limbaugh mix tape they’ll use to flush your words out of their ears the minute they hit the Black Desert Highway back to CAFOville. Time to take Old Yeller out behind the corn crib…

    https://cjones.iihr.uiowa.edu/blog/2022/02/unrest-ethanolia

    https://civileats.com/2022/02/14/how-corn-ethanol-for-biofuel-fueled-climate-change/

  14. Arlo Blundt 2022-04-13 23:55

    You’re so right, Hydroguy…I see more 65 year old plus duffers driving F-250 and 350 Heavy Duties, wearing MAGA gear, and bitching about our borders every day…it’s a new right of passage, just one more bonding exercise before they ride off into the sunset.

  15. M 2022-04-14 06:23

    So if Biden does nothing, then what? It would help if Republicans work with him. Biden inherited the biggest mess a Republican could have ever left. Anything Biden does will not satisfy everyone but we have to remember that this is a TEMPORARY fix. States could lower taxes on gas with all the money they have in their budgets. They want to see Biden and the Dems fail, thus hurting all Americans.

    Quit driving such big gas hogs, slow down and don’t drive to the store everyday. Don’t waste gas driving around town over and over and over in those F 250s. We use more fossil fuels than any other country and we sure don’t pay as much as them. Paying $2 for a liter is about $7 a gallon.

    My neighbor has 4 vehicles just for him plus a boat, camper, motorcycle, and Polaris.
    My other neighbor has 4 vehicles and each family member drives themselves to work or school about 6 blocks to 1.5 miles from home. Can’t the 2 kids ride in the same car? How did we come to this?

    WE ALL NEED TO DO MORE. What a wasteful and selfish society we have become. Shameful. A society that has never gone without like the greatest generation went through.

    START WALKING MORE to lose that weight Americans have gained from going to drive throughs. I could think of dozens more but I have to get ready and walk to work 2 blocks away.

  16. sx123 2022-04-14 06:54

    Gas prices were rising long before Russia went into Ukraine.

    A better way to lower gas price increases attributed to Russia/Ukraine is to stop sanctions. Eventually sanctions might wear down Russia, but at what cost to other nations?

    The US has effectively waged war, not only against Russia, but the whole world.

    In additon to Hungary and Austria opposing/questioning some of the sanctions, Germany,, and eventually others, will tell the US to pound sand if the effects of these sanctions become too uncomfortable.

  17. larry kurtz 2022-04-14 08:37

    The Broins are Earth hating christians joined at the groins to the Kochtopus.

  18. 96Tears 2022-04-14 11:34

    Hey there, Kristi. Ol’ 96 here again. It used to be a Democrat in South Dakota would stand up with S.D. Farmers Union on issues that would put money in farmers’ pockets, As you see here, those libs hate renewables unless they pass the purity test. Well, donchya never mind about them. If they’re for something, you’re agin it! And vice versa!

    Call up that Jeff Broin guy and meet him at the POET plant at Menlo, Iowa, to one up Biden. Make those liberals (you still callin’ ’em commies?) bleed from the ears when they hear you say E15’s not good enough. Let’s get dirty and go E30!

    P.S. – One more thing. Take ol’ 96’s political advice and never bring up that dumb Canadian sludge pipeline again. It died a long time ago. It would take years to revive it and by then Joe Biden would be deep in his second term, China will no longer need that Canadian sludge and President Zelenskyy will be measuring for new drapes and carpets in what was Putin’s Kremlin office. Bringing up Keystone XL just gives more ammunition for our pal Cory to show how ridiculously dumb you really are.

  19. mike from iowa 2022-04-14 15:53

    Way off topic, iowa loses its “first in the nation caucus” status.

  20. 96Tears 2022-04-14 16:36

    mfi – A bit off the beaten trail, but worth discussing anyway. The DNC is a toothless pander bear that bullies and threatens but eventually backs down. There are a gazillion pathways around the rules. The early states New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada gain their status because the RNC’s delegate selection rules are made of Jello. Republican legislators looooove passing first in the nation bills because they always torment the DNC elitists while the average GOP bubba just doesn’t give a rip and laughs his ass off watching the Democrats do their kabuki dance to punish Democrats who had no role in moving their state’s primary dates too early.

    In the end, what’s the worst that could happen? A state isn’t allowed to be seated at the Democratic National Convention??? You’ve gotta be kidding!

    “Three lashes with a wet noodle.” “Sir! May I have another?!!”

    The DNC every decade or more coughs up its latest master plan to have a 50-state strategy. The RNC doesn’t care about anything but winning in November by hook or crook. The DNC can growl, snap and cajole all they want. In the end, they cave. If not, what’s the visual going to look like when the Iowa delegates storm out of the convention center and set up a picket line at the entrance?

    The smart money would be establishing regional primaries, and to let a different region be first with each presidential cycle. Yes, some states might want to buck that system, too, but the fallout from going rogue while the rest of a region is being tested takes away some of the incentive to go rogue.

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