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Voice of the People
Chicago Tribune
435 N. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL
60611
Chicago Tribune Editorial Response
Ok, let’s add one to the list of things we can’t avoid: death, taxes and
the Chicago Tribune bashing ethanol. Your recent editorial (The Midwest’s Favorite Subsidy, 2-3-04) lambasting this clean-burning, domestically-produced, corn-based fuel is both pitiful and woefully
inaccurate. Worse, it is symptomatic of the decline of journalistic integrity that plagues this nation.
Your editorial calls for placing all subsidies on the table so they can be
considered for cuts. And you chose ethanol tax incentives as an example of where to begin because of the $1 billion-a-year spent to grow and expand this industry. I’d like to offer a deal for
consideration. We’ll advocate cutting all ethanol incentives tomorrow if we likewise drop all subsidies to the petroleum industry.
The national costs of our petroleum addiction unaccounted for in gasoline’s
retail price averages $84 billion a year. If we eliminated the tax, environmental and military subsidies for petroleum, gasoline prices at the pump would jump 32 cents a gallon, according to the Institute For Local
Self Reliance. Still want to deal?
Perhaps more importantly, the tax incentives for ethanol goes to local gasoline
retailers in the U.S. who offer ethanol, often-times with a part of the tax incentive being passed on to consumers. Unlike our petroleum subsidy programs which funnel money overseas by way of our dependence on
foreign oil. (66 percent our petroleum is currently imported). Ethanol creates jobs and economic activity right here at home.
Your contention that ethanol production consumes more energy than it provides is
also incorrect. You note that fossil fuel is needed to plant, fertilize, harvest, weed, and irrigate crops and none of these are taken into account in the scientific research. Actually you are wrong and
the Argonne study you cite include these costs. Who does your research and did you even look at the study? A copy of the Argonne study is included with the appropriate page marked.
The scientists you quote to make your case (David Pimentel of CornellUniversity and
Tad W. Patzek, a Geoengineering professor from California) are a farce and invalidate your entire argument. Pimentel is indeed a scientist, an entomologist to be exact. Just for reference, that’s
an insect expert in layman’s terms.
Asking Pimentel his opinion on ethanol technology is like asking a podiatrist to do
brain surgery. As for Tad Patzek, I have included part of his resume for your review. Mr. Patzek is a geoengineer and his resume indicates he is an expert in drilling holes in the ground to find
oil. He is a card-carrying member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers who worked for Shell Oil Company from 1981 to 1990. To my knowledge the closest either of these gentlemen have come to an ethanol
plant is in an airplane at 30,000 feet.
You cite these self proclaimed ethanol experts and thumb your nose at a research
studies conducted by the prestigious Argonne National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Your blatant bias smells like a week old dead carp!
You also cite a review of 19 studies conducted by the Oil and Gas Journal that
shows that ethanol is not energy efficient. There haven’t been 19 studies done on ethanol in the last five years (unless you count the research that Pimentel re-releases every year or two) and every thing
written prior to this is invalid because of the remarkable energy efficiencies wrought in the ethanol industry in the last few years. Even Argonne’s findings of a 36 percent net energy gain for ethanol are
somewhat outdated, because corn yields and technical efficiencies have improved since the study was written.
And where oh where did you come up with your comment that ethanol causes pipeline
erosion and causes fuel lines to seep? This information is fallacious and has no basis. Every gallon of gasoline sold in Chicago contains ethanol, and yet I see no rampant outbreak of
“seeping”. I could go on, but somehow I doubt there is a public apology or retraction in the offing.
I guess I need to be content and remind myself that another name for the editorial
section is the “opinion page,” where assertions need no facts to get printed.
Sincerely,
Martin Barbre
President
Illinois Corn Growers Association
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