The History of Hubristic U.S. Ethanol Policy

Letter to The WJ. 

"Mario Loyola and Derrick Morgan are generally right about the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, but they omit key facets of the mandate’s history (“Can Trump’s EPA Break the Ethanol Habit?” op-ed, Dec. 5).

The RFS was established under the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which called for the annual blending of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol into the gasoline supply by 2012. The real expansion, however, came in 2007 with the Energy Independence and Security Act, a response to soaring gasoline prices.

EISA upped the ante, raising the desired ethanol amount to 36 billion gallons by 2022. Fifteen billion would be derived from food crops like corn, but much of the rest was to come from the development of cellulosic ethanol: fuel from wood chips, switch grass and the like. President Bush assured us the technology would be ready by around 2012. With billions of gallons of cellulosic ethanol around, the auto industry would produce cars that could take a blend of 85% ethanol, leading to greater U.S. energy self-sufficiency.

EISA passed with bipartisan support, but the thinking behind it was the same hubris that Congress had shown in supporting other energy panaceas like synfuels: the notion that if government demanded technological change, it would happen. Cellulosic ethanol has never proved economically viable, but the RFS remains. It is too much a farm bill for politicians to repeal it, though surely they should.

Em. Prof. Peter Z. Grossman

Butler University"