Editorial-Opinion August 2016

Today, I want to talk about politics and petroleum gas. I am a PL 92-500 baby, and so are many of you. President Richard Nixon signed to law Public Law (PL) 92-500; what you now know as the Clean Water Act, and it established the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA. 

Prior to that act, the rivers in northwest Georgia ran the color of whatever carpet was popular that day. Lead was in our gasoline, and thus in our air and water. Mercury and chromium were being dumped into our streams; today there remains a fish-eating advisory because PCBs remain in the food chain in the Savannah River lakes from the process of producing electrical transformers. 

PL 92-500 has done a lot of good. But of late, the agency that spearheaded solving real problems has been politicized and is using its power to control people, not to cure environmental issues. 

By definition, an agency is politicized by politicians. That brings me to the conjunction of politics and petroleum gas. The EPA is about to require an increase in the alcohol content of  unleaded gas. The shift will be from 10 percent to 15 percent ethanol. The justification for this increase is based on public health and environmental health.

Yet the cost for this increase has not been a part of the thought process of EPA to a level that would forestall this EPA mandated increase of 50 percent more alcohol in our tanks. 

Why? 

We are about to elect a new president. The current administration has used naked and often illegal power through its agencies to make changes. Among many other abuses, it squandered money on bad solar power investments, illegally defined and regulated coal use, and illegally used the IRS to squelch opposition to these steps. What will the new president do? 

If the EPA proposal regarding the increase in ethanol is adopted by EPA, ALL of us will be harmed. I will get into how in a moment, but I want to link the political aspect here.

We now have what is known as a binary political choice for president; Clinton or Trump. 

Similarly, we face a binary choice for gas, E-10 for the future or E-15. 

Automobiles built after 2001 are said to be able to safely use E-15 gas. The same cannot be said for older vehicles. Nor can it be said for many current motorcycles, ATVs, many outboards, lawn mowers, chain saws… the list is endless. Too much ethanol destroys components in these devices, and you bear the cost and the aggravation. 

But if there were some off-setting environmental benefits to ruining my toys with bad gas, perhaps the aggravation of dealing with this government-imposed ruination would be a bit more easily accepted. 

As it turns out, the increased ethanol in our gasoline does not improved the environment. Nor is it neutral and benign. Fact is, ethanol is a net negative for the environment. 

If a true accounting is provided for the cost of ethanol production, it is a net consumer of energy. 

Because there is less energy in a gallon of alcohol than a gallon of gasoline, our cars get fewer miles per gallon of blended gas than on straight gas, so we burn more gallons. 

Because corn used for making alcohol is not available for food stock, our food costs, already artificially high, will rise even more under this new government mandate. 

Because there is greater demand for corn by government mandate, there will be more corn planted, disturbing more soil, increasing siltation and run-off pollution in the streams. 

There will be fewer acres left fallow and untilled to provide natural habitat for wildlife, and for sportsmen. In short, the environment the Environmental Protection Agency was created to protect will be harmed by the agency’s own mandated rules. 

This is but one example of “government not working” that you may have heard about on the news. But this government mistake is about to be sitting in a red plastic container in your garage, or camp, or boat. 

These bad decisions are not being made by the career men and women who work at these agencies. They are being made by politicians who are more interested in power than good government. The next president will appoint Supreme Court Justices that will save or end your Second Amendment rights—and will save or ruin your lawn mower. 

I thought you should know before you vote.