Corn Growers Leave No Moss Under Foot

August 2, 2001

The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) is continuing its defense of ethanol by targeting advocacy messages to members of the House of Representatives. Wednesday in Congress Daily, NCGA placed a full-page ad urging House members to vote against the Waxman-Cox amendment that would force a waiver for California from the reformulated gasoline program.

Part of the ad read: "Would you give one state the right to exempt its residents from Social Security withholding? Then why give California the option to ignore Clean Air Standards?" The ad copy includes quotes from EPA Administrator Christine Whitman and the environmental group - the Bluewater Network - that support the federal RFG oxygen requirement. NCGA also circulated a letter addressed to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) urging them to vote against the Waxman-Cox amendment.

Nearly two dozen agricultural organizations signed on to the letter.

Dr. Russell Long, executive director, and Elisa Lynch, director of the biofuels campaign for the Bluewater Network, a San Francisco-based national environmental organization, said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) who is leading the attempt to get California exempted from the RFG program, represents Los Angeles "where people breathe some of the dirtiest air in the United States," and yet he is asking for the California waiver.

"This is the same Rep. Waxman, who this spring introduced legislation in hopes of forcing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enforce arsenic standards for drinking water. In a letter to EPA Administrator Christine Whitman on April 20, he expressed ‘great concern' about the agency's decision to reconsider arsenic standards. He said EPA had a ‘statutory duty to have a new standard in place.'"

In an article appearing on the Bluewater web site, Long and Lynch said California has not attained air quality standards mandated by law and is ineligible for a waiver to use non-oxygenated gasoline. "The law says that California, and other non-attainment areas, must use reformulated, oxygenated gasoline. But Waxman, and Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA) continue to push to allow states to get around the law. They failed to pass an amendment in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but now they are maneuvering to bring the measure to the House floor through a back-door approach."

They added, "All efforts to weaken the reformulated fuels requirement should be opposed as vigorously as Waxman opposed weakening of the clean water standard, if not more so." The "clear best choice is to use ethanol. It is a renewable fuel, which reduces dependence on foreign oil. It is clean energy, unlike gasoline and oil. It drastically reduces greenhouse gases. It preserves the air quality gains achieved with MTBE. And, it promises to rejuvenate rural economies."

The Bluewater Network is concerned about climate change and environmental damage from the shipping, oil and motorized recreation industries. Bluewater Network is a project of the Earth Island Institute.