Today in the Senate

Corn Lobby Wins Again California Air Quality Suffers
June 11, 2005

In the face-off between California and Corn Belt states over ethanol, California lost again this month. Federal officials concede that the corn-based fuel additive can increase smog and soot pollution from vehicles. But in a ruling shocking in its disregard for public health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency refused for a second time to scrap the rule requiring California to blend ethanol in its gasoline. Wintertime use of ethanol helps to reduce carbon monoxide pollution. In summer, however, ethanol in gasoline increases NOx and hydrocarbon emissions, major components of toxic smog that aggravates asthma and other respiratory diseases and can lead to premature death. It also increases the formation of tiny soot particles that can lodge deep in lungs. California wanted a waiver from the EPA so that gasoline sold in the state would not have to contain ethanol during the summer. The EPA conceded that California air quality officials are right about ethanol's polluting effect in summer. Nonetheless, in its tortured ruling, the federal agency said California had not "clearly demonstrated" that the ethanol requirement would delay or interfere with the state's ability to meet federal clean air standards. Incredibly, the ruling said that even if California had demonstrated that the ethanol rule prevented the state from meeting clean air standards, the EPA "would deny the waiver." Why? "This reduction in the use of ethanol would undermine the potential benefits vis a vis energy security and support for rural and agricultural economy that Congress expected" from its ethanol rule. In other words, to the EPA regulators, the economy of the farm belt states matters more than the lungs of California residents. The ruling is not just an assault on public health, but on California's economy as well. According to scientists at the California Air Resources Board, because other gasoline components are removed when ethanol is added, in the end ethanol does not increase the volume of gasoline that can be produced in summer, the state's peak driving season. Even worse, because ethanol has lower energy content than the gasoline it displaces, it reduces fuel economy by about 2 percent. The EPA ruling's effect is to increase payouts to one special interest, Midwest corn producers. For that California endures higher gasoline prices and dirtier air. California cannot afford to let this assault on public health, fairness and common sense stand. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has persuaded the Senate Energy Committee to add a clause to a pending energy bill that would exempt California from the ethanol rule during summer months. All the state's elected officials should join her in that fight.