Never Stop Educating

Doug Durante, Clean Fuels Development Coalition

For all of us long-time ethanol supporters, we share the frustration that American agriculture and the ethanol we produce is so often misunderstood. We were reminded of this after participating in the annual con­vention of the Society of Environmental Jour­nalists this month.

This gathering of more than 750 journal­ists who cover the environment and related issues was a great opportunity to reach these influencers and share the message of the health, climate, energy, economic and na­tional security we provide.

Thanks to a grant from SDFU and funds provided by the Hallberg Family of South Da­kota, we were able to have an exhibit space and distribute many of our highly successful issue briefs and publications. Burl Haigwood, CFDC Director of Program Development & Outreach, led this effort and importantly, personally engaged many of these journalists before and during the event. For anyone who knows Burl, he is not shy about telling the ethanol story and was recognized during the event as one of the most active participants at the conference. In addition to our CFDC publications, Burl and I co-authored the book Gasolinegate, which SDFU also supported as we have and continue to distribute it to con­gress, federal agencies and the media. The book is the basis for an educational campaign we have launched.

Gasolinegate chronicles the decades-long effort by the petroleum industry and EPA to impede the development of ethanol. The story we tell in the book of the 40 years of fighting an uphill battle is well documented and sourced and should leave little doubt that our dependence on petroleum has had a negative impact on our health, climate and economy.

As we engaged with these journalists, however, many of the age-old myths that have surrounded ethanol surfaced with ques­tions as to subsidies, cost, energy balance, land use, water usage, etc., etc. And most disturbing is what we seem to find wherever we go: everyone seems to be at least pass­ingly familiar with the problems of ethanol but know nothing about what is in our gaso­line. In fact, Burl designed a “Do You Know What’s in Your Gasoline” quiz that is a fun but revealing exercise: Gasolinegate: What’s in Your Gasoline Quiz Survey (surveymonkey. com)

The economic, energy, and other issues aside – as important as they are – our core ar­gument is that gasoline is loaded with known carcinogens and clean, renewable ethanol from American agriculture can replace these compounds and in fact, is required. So this brings us back to the oil industry and EPA which have collaborated to skew emission, cost and performance data to maintain the status quo.

While in the Senate, South Dakota’s Tom Daschle led the bipartisan efforts to replace toxic compounds with ethanol and he au­thored critical legislative initiatives to do so. More than 30 years later the congressional directives have largely been ignored.

So you might ask what does all of this have to do with environmental journalists and I would say everything! If they were en­gaged in our clean fuel issues they can have a huge impact on public policy. Politicians and bureaucrats who make decisions read news­papers and watch talk shows. It is their job to respond to public opinion. Our problem is the story they have been told by the petroleum industry and the lack of support from EPA is one sided.

Our work at the conference revealed that 99 percent of the many writers we engaged did not know benzene and its derivatives were so prevalent in gasoline, despite that fact that benzene is classified as a known car­cinogen and its aromatic partners (toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene, collectively called BTEX) are suspected carcinogens and form airborne benzene when combusted. These emissions – in the form of ultrafine particu­lates that can directly enter the blood stream – have been linked to everything from asthma to low birthweight to autism. The statistics don’t lie – inner cities with high concentra­tions of particulate emissions have off-the-charts illness and morbidity rates.

How is it that journalists are not scream­ing out these dangers yet cannot stop writ­ing about climate change, how the world will be saved with electric vehicles and more re­cently, the so-called forever chemicals? How is it the lead in water issues impacting several cities have resulted in cries of outrage but cancer at the pump is ignored? Several years ago there was a massive tanker spill in the Houston Harbor when ungodly amounts of what refiners call “reformate” poured into the harbor waters. Reformate is, by defini­tion, a high-octane blending agent contain­ing high volumes of aromatics, which are the BTEX compounds. Yet, there was little hue and cry over this because the media and en­vironmental journalists probably did not un­derstand that reformate was in effect a code word covering up the carcinogens.

Someone should have been asking why are these terrible compounds in gasoline and do we have any alternatives. We know the answer, but this brings us full circle back to the need for education and accurate, cred­ible information. This extends to agriculture and ethanol. So many of the media types we encounter have a negative view of ethanol. Simple lessons could include explaining how modern ag practices dramatically increased yield per acre using less energy inputs than ever before, or that the corn used for ethanol is feed grain not fit for human consumption yet is converted to a high protein feed that multiplies its value.

When engaged, some can be turned and appreciate new information. So we will con­tinue to inform, educate and work with jour­nalists to ensure ethanol and agriculture are understood and appreciated for the crucial role it can play in protecting public health and meeting a range of societal goals. Thanks to SDFU for your leadership on these issues.