The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 347
multi-year economic stimulus. Further to the warranty issue, let the government mandate that five or ten cents of every gallon of ethanol sold to
be set aside in a fund to reimburse the manufacturers for costs related to
"ethanol caused" repairs, if any are reported and confirmed. Auto dealers
would love for their service departments to have the extra work; they just
don't want to have to foot the bill.”
At this point, it was late Friday so I didn’t expect to receive a reply, and I wasn’t
disappointed – I didn’t get one. During my correspondence with Mr. Green, I
copied Lauren Fix, Melissa Francis, and FOX News on everything. I wanted to
see if they would comment on the AAA back and forth, or at the least my original
comments to them. As of the time of this writing, Tuesday, January 8th, I have
not received any response from Francis, Fix, or FOX, and nothing further from
AAA.
I did, however, receive an email from Christina Martin, Executive Vice President
of the Renewable Fuels Association, on the point of contention that I raised with
AAA about E15 underground storage. Ms. Martin forwarded this from one of her
colleagues:
“You are correct, our statements were precautionary and stated in a way
to prompt station owners to investigate their tanks and fuel compatibility
- not just take a blanket statement by a handbook as sufficient. Page 10
of the retailer handbook states not all tanks may be compatible with
E15… there was no testing that supported that statement, in fact DOE
just finished testing on UST system materials late last summer.
“Here are some facts to use:
• According to EPA Underground Storage Tank Program, there are
590,000 active underground storage tanks currently in America;
there is a 70.9% compliance rate to prevent and detect leaks at
these active USTs. That indicates there are 29.1% of the current
tanks that are leaking or have serious potential to leak.
• Further, EPA UST program states there has been a steady decline
in annual UST releases since 1990; the very same time period
when ethanol blending, storage and dispensing has reached an alltime high.
• The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has
studied ethanol’s potential to affect underground storage tanks and
