Path to energy independence includes ethanol? Your Say

Potential GOP presidential candidates supported the Renewable Fuel Standard last week in Iowa. Political concerns outweighed ethanol's impracticality, an editorial argued. Letters to the editor:

Environmentalists were one of the original driving forces for mandating ethanol in gasoline. They campaigned for higher ethanol content. Reducing petroleum use pleased their "purity of purpose" morality, without regard to the actual consequences of their actions.

Those consequences increased fuel costs and food prices; poured tax subsidies into an uneconomic program; caused farmers to plow up pristine land; and created a powerful lobbying group of those who invested their money in providing the mandated ethanol.

As a scientist and environmentalist, I was stunned and ashamed of this irresponsible obsession of many environmentalists.

Robert W. Gallant; Midland, Mich.

To all the many good reasons for doing away with the ethanol mandate, I would add one more: small-engine repair.

Ask lawn maintenance companies how many times they have had to service their chainsaws, leaf blowers, lawn mowers and snow blowers since ethanol was introduced. Then ask any homeowners who use that same equipment to maintain their property how many times they have had to have their carburetors and gas lines cleaned because of having to use ethanol fuel.

The people who benefit from its use are the hardware stores and repair shops.

Edward Lumas; Grand Rapids, Mich.

Comments from Facebook are edited for clarity and grammar:

Eliminating the ethanol mandate would immediately spike our gas use. This would happen without a Mideast crisis, a refinery shutdown or hurricane in the Gulf. Guess what happens to prices when there is an increase in demand? Any price decrease due to ethanol being a more expensive fuel to use than gasoline would be counteracted.

As a country, we seem to be losing focus on the fact that gas and oil are national security issues. We have made great strides in recent years moving in the direction of energy independence, and lessening the threat that other countries can harm us by causing energy shortages. We need to keep moving forward.

— Johnny Rose

Countries in South America are able to create ethanol from cane sugar, which is more efficient than making it from corn. The ethanol production in the U.S. is a cash giveaway to the farmers, and the rest of the country pays the price. If you are going to make a biofuel, biodiesel is the fuel to make.

— Andrew Peeler

Ethanol has brought farmers back from the brink of financial uncertainty and helped to reduce our bondage to nations that hate us.

In addition, it has reduced the likelihood that our sons and daughters will have to spill their blood protecting a commodity that is destroying our planet.

— Guy Berk

The ethanol mandate in the U.S. is completely political. We'd be much better served putting the extra money spent on ethanol on energy sources that are actually clean, such as solar and wind power.

— George Austin Terlep