The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 561
Some of the oil industry shills, like Jerry Taylor, claim that America’s service
stations are primarily or only selling gasoline and diesel because that’s “what
the public wants.” Taylor likes to say that most filling stations are now independently owned and operated and that the oil companies have no control over
what they sell. Taylor cites this as an example of the free and open market that
we have. This is an entirely untrue situation, so either he is a complete liar, or
he’s the ignorant pompous fool that I believe him to be, or both.
Yes, it’s correct that most filling stations are independently owned and operated,
but most are under contractual obligations to their gasoline provider to not sell
any type of fuel product that they don’t produce or distribute. So if a particular
oil distributor doesn’t offer an ethanol blend, such as E85 or E15, then in most
instances the independent owner-operator cannot accept another distributor’s
ethanol product without the filling station owner paying a burdensome fee to do
so. This is not a free and open marketplace.
Intervention to insure fair competition is necessary. As a libertarian, I agree that
it’s unfortunate that the intervention has to be from the government, but who
else would be capable of applying and enforcing competition regulations that
are designed to be fair?
Bryce also talks about, and thanks, various Arab oil-related people for a trip he
took to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which helped him “…understand the Arab world and the on-going trend of globalization…” of the energy
sector.
While I don’t want to make too much of the “help” that Bryce might have received from the Arabs, particularly because I have no access to his bank records, I also don’t want to make too little of it.
If you recall, as I stated above, in my email to Robert Bryce I asked if he is
“…merely repeating the information points sent to you by one of the oil industry
public relations groups.” And Bryce emphatically replied, “I have never been
given any information points by PR firms on ethanol.” Well, let me draw this
connection: Saudi Arabia’s public relations firm in the United States is Edelman
Public Relations. Edelman is also the PR firm for the American Petroleum Institute (API), which is the primary mouthpiece for the oil industry in our country.
Three weeks ago I received an email from Edelman setting forth these “informational points” about ethanol:
“As travelers plan to journey an average of 690 miles (on the Memorial
Day holiday weekend), those filling up on high ethanol-gasoline blends
