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CURRENT INFORMATION, ISSUE BRIEFS, & PRESS RELEASES
U.S. Senate Committee on Finance
Hearings on Grains, Cane and Automobiles: Tax Incentives for Alternative Fuels and Vehicles : April 19, 2007
Testimony of R. James Woolsey,
Member National Commission on Energy Policy
Two New Publications Available from Ethanol Across America (See below)
Environmental Impacts of Ethanol Production Issue Brief, and White Paper on Food, DDG, and Lifecycle Assessment Released this Week.
Click here for Press Release (PDF 104 K)
Rethinking the Value of Corn Ethanol
Co-Products in Lifecycle Assessments
Click to download the White Paper (PDF 964K)
Issue Brief: Environmental Impacts of Ethanol Production (Summer 2009)
Click here to download the Issue Brief (PDF 364K)
Stop Blaming Ethanol
Former USDA Secretary Calls for Grocery Manufacturers to Stop Blaming Biofuels and Provide Relief to American Consumers: Ed Schafer, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under George W. Bush, Governor of North Dakota from 1992-2000, and one of the founders of the Governors' Biofuels Coalition was the first guest on the 2009 edition of the Ethanol Minute Radio program.
Click here for press release (PDF 107K).
Click here to listen.
Senator Richard Lugar Featured on Ethanol Minute Radio
Washington, DC, April 6, 2009: U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of the Senate's strongest voices for Energy Security will be this week's guest commentator on the Ethanol Minute Radio Program.
Click here for press release (PDF 90K).
Click here to listen.
Tired of Just Complaining? Join the Club – the
Flexible Fuel Vehicle Club of America
On July 31st, the Ethanol Across America education campaign helped launch
the Flex Fuel Vehicle Club of America (Flex Fuel Vehicle Club) at the Renewable
Energy Expo on Capitol Hill.
The FFV Club is a web-based, membership driven, very unique new community-of-interest.
The FFV Club will corral, nurture, harness, and activate the power of
millions of existing and future FFV owners.
For more information
go to www.flexiblefuelvehicleclub.org
National FFV Awareness Project To Mobilize Support for Increased Ethanol Usage
Washington, DC April 22, 2009. As part of a series of events across the country celebrating Earth Day, the Ethanol Across America education campaign announced today its support of the National Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV) Awareness Project in cooperation with the FlexFuel Vehicle Club of America. The FlexFuel Vehicle Club was founded to build a national support base of FFV owners and other related stakeholders. The goal of the project is to accelerate and support existing consumer education efforts to increase ethanol demand through the sale of high level blends of ethanol to meet the nation’s renewable fuel standard.
Click here for press release (PDF 106K).
Ethanol 3rd Largest Contributor to Nation’s Gasoline Supply
The Clean Fuels Foundation’s Ethanol Across America education campaign released part of an internal study that places the U.S. fuel ethanol industry as the third largest contributor to the U.S. gasoline supply – surpassing Iraq and several other OPEC countries.
Click here for the Press Release.
ISSUE BRIEFS
The Ethanol Fact Book Provides an Overview of the Economic, Environmental and Energy Security Benefits of Ethanol
Economic
Impact of Ethanol Production
This report, sponsored by CFDC
and released by the Ethanol Across America Education Campaign,
illustrates how U.S. ethanol production facilities are generating hundreds
of millions of dollars to local, state, and federal governments through
direct and indirect economic generation. "When
indirect and induced jobs are considered, along with capital
spending and investment, the ethanol industry is adding more than $40
billion of gross output to the U.S. economy," said U.S. Senator
Ben Nelson (D-NE) Co-Chairman of the Ethanol Across America campaign.
"Representatives
Delahunt, Terry, and Inslee Join Ethanol Across America Advisory Committee"
Ethanol's Negative Energy Balance Myth: Case Closed
According to a new Net Energy Balance of Ethanol Production study released today by the Ethanol Across America (EAA) education campaign, the energy efficiency of ethanol plants is steadily improving, with modern ethanol plants using 20% less energy than just four years ago. "The facts speak for themselves in that today's ethanol plants are producing more energy in the form of domestic transportation fuels and using considerably less energy to do so. Energy audits, independent studies, and government research all confirm that ethanol is a net energy producer and that we are constantly improving technology." said EAA Advisory Board Member Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD).
Click here for copies of the Press Release & Net Energy Balance of Ethanol Production Study
The Ethanol Across America education campaign releases The Summer 2008
edition of The Impact of Ethanol Production on Food, Fuel and Feed.
This report was designed to help the media and public understand the
real impact of the U.S. fuel ethanol program on food prices and help
combat the paid negative media campaign being waged against ethanol by
the Grocery Manufacturers Association. Copy
of the Press Release. Download
Copy of the Report here.
Alternative Fuels Key to a Rural Renaissance: USDA Under Secretary Tom Dorr
The outlook for rural America has never been brighter; we are at the nexus of a rural renaissance. Renewable energy, especially ethanol, is the cause.
Ethanol & Rural
Development (PDF 148K)
Thinking About Building an Ethanol Plant? Do Your Homework First!
Ethanol Plant
Guide (PDF 836K)
OTHER PRESS RELEASES
Congressmen Join Senators Nelson and Lugar on Ethanol Across America Advisory Board
The Ethanol Across America Education Campaign administered through CFDC’s Clean Fuels Foundation, is honored to have Congressman Lee Terry (R-NE), Congressman Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Congressman William Delahunt (D-MA) join co-chairs Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) on the advisory board .
Washington D.C. October 20, 2008
U.S. Senator Dick Lugar
(R-IN), Co-Chairman of the Ethanol Across America education
campaign, continued to sound the alarm over U.S. dependence
on imported oil this month as he called on the next President
to commit to elevating energy security to the status of a
core national
goal in a major speech at Purdue University Calumet. Click
here for more.
PRESIDENT BUSH: “THE ETHANOL INDUSTRY IS ON THE MOVE, AND AMERICA IS BETTER OFF FOR IT!”
Washington, D.C. April 25, 2006: President Bush gave a stirring speech here today, touting ethanol as one of the fastest ways available for the U.S. to reduce dependence on petroleum. April 25, 2006 Press Release
(PDF 43K)
March 15, 2006 Press Release
(PDF 39K)
Ethanol Across America Applauds
Introduction of New RFS Legislation
Senator
Richard Lugar Joins Ethanol Across America Advisory Committee
EAA is proud to offer new E-10 Unleaded brochure |
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Our Mission: Education & Communication
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ETHANOL ACROSS AMERICA s a unique grassroots education campaign of the Clean Fuels Foundation.
It is a partnership between industry and government leaders that
are committed to advancing the production and use of renewable
transportation fuels that can reduce oil imports, emissions and
stimulate the economy. The goal is to sustain a comprehensive
education and outreach program to help consumers learn more about
how crude oil imports and use impact their lives and the benefits
of developing and using alternative fuels.
Information
and knowledge will increase consumer confidence necessary to sustain
renewable fuel/biofuel/ethanol production and use, thereby paving
the way for the growth in domestic fuels that will help our economy,
protect our environment, create jobs, and reduce America’s
dangerous dependence on foreign oil.
The Ethanol Across American education
campaign receives support from its board of advisors, and other
leaders that actively support the development of alternative fuel
fuels. The Ethanol Across America education campaign also works
cooperatively with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department
of Energy, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Its bipartisan Congressional Board of Advisors
is co-chaired by Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN, Ranking member of the
Foreign Relations committee, and the Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry
committee) and Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE, Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry,
and Armed Services committees). The Co-Chairs of the Board
of Advisors are joined by their colleagues Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD,
Energy & Natural Resources committee), and Congressmen Lee Terry
(R-NE, Energy & Commerce committee), Jay Inslee (D-WA, Energy & Commerce
and Natural Resources committee), and William Delahunt (D-MA, Foreign
Affairs committee).
WHAT WE DO
"We can get fuel from fruit, from the sumac by the
roadside, or from apples, weeds, sawdust, almost anything. There
is enough alcohol in one years' yield of an acre of potatoes
to cultivate that field for a hundred years. And it remains for
someone to find how this fuel can be produced commercially-better
fuel at a cheaper price than we now know."
Henry Ford, 1929 |
With encouragement from voters the federal government has played
a key role in developing programs that have supported the goals
of the majority of Americans. The space program, Manhattan
Project, building interstate highway systems, education about smoking
and drug use, medicine and disease research, and seatbelt and drunken
driving education campaigns are all similar examples to the U.S.
fuel ethanol program and what the Ethanol Across American education
campaign is trying to accomplish. Laws have been passed to
help develop and accelerate the development of alternative fuels
like fuel ethanol. While many other alternative fuels and
vehicles are in the development stage and will eventually help
our country, ethanol is currently the only commercial scale alternative
fuel that is within reach of the average American and is making
a difference in supplies and gasoline prices today. The Clean
Fuels Foundation and the Ethanol Across America education campaign
do not lobby to change laws, it is a program to educate people
about laws that have already been passed by Congress and signed
by the president.
Eight years later, fuel ethanol is made from corn in
the Midwest. Soon, forestry wastes in the northeast, switchgrass
and rice straw in California, sugar cane in Louisiana, Hawaii,
and Florida, and garbage from everyone will all help America wean
its addiction from oil. These new and emerging cellulose production
technologies, some under construction today, will build new potential
for producing our own fuel – but we still need to use less.
New
automotive technologies such as hybrids, electric plug ins, smaller
more efficient cars are all helping America use less gasoline everyday – but
we still need to try and find ways to replace it. Today, there
are seven million Flexible Fuel Vehicles on the road that can use
any combination of gasoline or alcohol, and another million are
going to come out of showrooms this year. Learn
more about how we support the development of these vehicles and
the use of higher blends of ethanol at www.flexiblefuelvehicleclub.org
It
is going to take everything we have to help reduce our oil imports
and help our economy. The likely first step is to continue
developing what is working with the least disruption to the refueling
system, consumer willingness for change and the technology and
feedstocks we have available today.
If we succeed today. Tomorrow
will look even brighter.
WHY DO WHAT WE DO?
Business and personal tax flow back to the very
communities where we live, helping to provide good schools, better
services, and keeping our young people from having to leave their
home towns. |
Why renewable transportation fuels like ethanol? Because it works. Ethanol
provides energy, environmental and economic security for all Americans
Energy
Security
Did you know that every time our country processes a bushel
of corn into ethanol, ethanol
plants produce food and fuel for America?
In many states where ethanol plants are located, they already produce enough
motor fuel to help meet the majority of their own fuel needs. The #2 yellow feed
corn remains in the food chain as animal feed, since only the starch content
has been converted. Why corn now? Year after year corn is a renewable resource,
as are a host of agricultural products and wastes. And the more ethanol we produce,
the more we can begin to reverse the tide of imported oil that is approaching
70% and threatens the very security of this nation. Despite the propaganda you
may have read or heard, ethanol has a positive
energy balance and also
produces a strategically important commodity from our natural recourses like
agricultural products and natural gas.
Economic Security
In the small towns and rural communities where
ethanol plants are being built, we have seen
the benefits first hand — new jobs at good wages.
Business and personal taxes flow back to the very communities where
you may live, helping to provide good schools, better services,
and keeping our young people from having to leave their home towns.
Environmental
Security
In addition to energy security and economic development
benefits, ethanol is a clean burning fuel that can have a significant
impact on air quality. Ethanol has in large part helped eliminate
carbon monoxide emissions throughout urban areas in the United
States. America's car companies are producing millions of vehicles
capable of operating on 85% volume ethanol blends that can dramatically
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The use of cellulosic biomass
as a feedstock for ethanol production creates even more CO2 reductions,
and research programs at the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture
could bring the costs of converting those materials into ethanol
to competitive levels in the near future.
Why? Ask yourself why
not?
WHEN IS IT HAPPENING?
Half of that energy used is just for transportation
and 98% of that energy is from oil. |
Now. The United States uses more energy than any nation
on earth. Half of that energy used is just for transportation and
98% of that energy is from oil. Most of our oil is imported, putting
Americans at risk of supply disruptions and spiraling prices while
costing the economy billions of dollars.
US dependence on imported
oil is at an all time high and government forecasts expect it to
soon reach 70%. As we become more and more dependent on volatile
foreign countries for our energy we get nothing in return, creating a mounting
trade deficit built on the hard earned dollars of US workers. Many Americans
no longer believe this trend is irreversible and importing oil from places like
the Middle East is just the way it used to be. We can slow that flow of
foreign oil with a truly American solution: clean, renewable fuels like ethanol
from our abundant agricultural resources like corn, agricultural wastes, trash,
new energy crops and waste from forests. We can, and we are doing something
right now!
What are you doing to help?
WHERE IS IT TAKING PLACE?
"And its not just farmers urban waste,
forestry wastes and products, specialty energy crops and many
other materials can be converted to ethanol and also to a wide
range of biobased products everywhere, all across America." |
All across America there are individuals, civic and industry leaders,
environmental groups and automobile manufacturers that are reaching
a tipping point, a true consensus of common ground by trying to
advance the use of clean, domestic and renewable fuels to protect
our environment and economy. Ethanol blended gasoline is currently
sold in nearly every state and is used as an alternative fuel in
numerous state and federal government fleets. But after all that
work and success it only represents about 2% of motor fuels used.
The
potential for new jobs and to alleviate our pollution and trade
problems are tremendous and can impact Americans everywhere – and
everyday.
Despite the dramatic growth of the ethanol industry over
the past two decades, we are just scratching the surface of our
potential in this area. The Energy
Independence and Security Act of 2007 included provisions to triple the nation’s
ethanol production and accelerate the demand for new advanced biofuels and technologies
to use cellulosic feedstocks. At the local, the majority of Americans,
which is all we need in a democracy, are concerned about our country, our economy,
our environment, and our energy and national security. Ask your local suppliers
if they can support you and their country, and support their community by making
these fuels available. Help spread the word to your elected officials, your neighbors,
and your children. We can make more clean, renewable energy, right here, in America — if
you take action.
The U.S. agriculture industry is America's blessing, but the
American farmer is in a constant struggle for not just profitability,
but even for survival. Yet American agriculture holds the key to
future success while meeting a wide range of public policy goals
through the production of fuel ethanol and other fuels. And its
not just farmers — urban waste, forestry wastes
and products, specialty energy crops and many other materials can
be converted to ethanol and also to a wide range of biobased products
everywhere, all across America.
The U.S. ethanol program is supporting
farmers across the country to help them build ethanol plants to
meet the challenges facing America in dealing with our dependence
on imported oil and our struggling economy. Ethanol Across America
is going to help mobilize existing support and bring on new supporters
to take control of our energy future by providing objective and
peer reviewed information. Through this website you can become
informed. You can take action. You can make a difference.
An ambitious
program? You bet it is, and good things don't come easy.
But with the kinds of benefits ethanol offers, we need to all work
together to support ethanol programs and revitalize the economy
everywhere and lead the way so we can develop newer technologies
to transfer the rest of the world – which
is in the same predicament.
Let's continue to put American dollars
back into America by reducing oil imports and creating jobs with
renewable transportation fuels.
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