The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 476
had a leading role. Moreover, the coincidental timing of his editorial with Bill
Shughart's editorial may mean that if they're not connected electronically that
they must be using smoke signals.
Mr. Wolfram's editorial is titled "Renewable Fuel Standard Has Failed" It was
published in the Detroit Free Press on April 15th.
Just as the headline advertises, Mr. Wolfram attempts to lay out the case that
the RFS program has been a failure. Basically, he could have written an editorial titled "Traffic Stop Light Program A Dismal Failure," and filled the article with
details about how many people have been killed or injured in traffic light accidents over the past century - and then punctuate the text with gory photos and
videos of dead and mutilated bodies to prove the program's failure. Of course,
we all know that regardless of the number of traffic light accidents that have
occurred, that number is infinitesimally tiny compared to the number of people
who safely navigate our public thoroughfares every day, year after year. But
you probably get the idea, his story about the RFS is VBS (very bull sh-t).
Oh wait, just so you don't get the wrong idea, I'm not suggesting that anyone
gets killed or injured by using ethanol fuels, not even a teeny tiny number of
people, because they don't. But, we do know that hundreds of thousands...millions...of people have been injured and killed because of gasoline.
Let me not trip the light fantastic with analogies any longer, let's get down to
business. In every way imaginable the Renewable Fuel Standard has been a
success. It has:
1. Given us a non-poisonous alternative to tetraethyl lead and MTBE.
2. Given us a tool to begin to wean our country away from dependence
on oil (foreign and domestic).
3. Been a significant factor in cleaning the air and water.
4. Given us a fuel that cannot create the kind of environmental and animal
disasters that we have seen from petroleum oil and its derivative fuels.
5. Helped stabilize the farming industry, perhaps our most important domestic industry.
6. Saved consumers on the price per gallon of fuel by helping to force oil
prices down and because the ethanol component in the ethanol-gasoline
