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American Council for Capital Formation
"Inconvenient Fact: Science
Concludes Ethanol Mandates Harm Environment"
+
:30 TV ad seen in IA on Jan. 25, 2016.
[Music]
Male Announcer:
Ethanol
mandates were supposed to be part of a clean energy
future.
But mandating corn for ethanol doubles greenhouse gas emissions
compared to gasoline over 30 years.
And escalating mandates raise food costs and threaten the quality of
the air we breathe.
Mounting scientific evidence has revealed the inconvenient
truth: Increasing ethanol mandates can actually make things
worse.
Tell Congress and the administration to end ethanol mandates.
Notes: The
press
release...
Major New Iowa Statewide TV
Ad Buy Shines Spotlight on Corn Ethanol’s Environmental Toll
DES MOINES, Iowa (Jan. 25, 2016) – Following up on the release of a new
statewide poll last week defying conventional political wisdom and
showing the vast majority of Iowa voters don’t know and aren’t
particularly concerned about candidates’ positions on ethanol and the
Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the American Council for Capital
Formation (ACCF) launched a major statewide TV advertising campaign
today in Iowa exposing several “inconvenient facts” about the serious
and deleterious impact that corn ethanol has had (and continues to
have) on our environment.
“Federal corn ethanol mandates have brought harm to our
economy and our environment, and our hope in running these ads is to
introduce more folks in Iowa to the growing body of science and
research that confirms and quantifies these trends,” said George David
Banks, Executive Vice President of ACCF. “Some might assume this
message won’t resonate in a major corn-producing state like Iowa, but
that’s not the lesson that emerged from our polling of Iowa voters last
week. What we found is that ethanol is no longer the potent political
issue that many once thought it was in the state.”
An ACCF-commissioned poll of 700 likely Iowa caucus voters, released
last week, further reinforces the clear fact that corn ethanol is no
longer the “third rail” of Iowa politics, a phenomenon that has
recently been reported by the Quad-City Times, LA Times, POLITICO, NPR
and other outlets.
The statewide Iowa ad buy follows an expansive advocacy and multimedia
campaign that ACCF, the National Marine Manufacturers Association
(NMMA), and the National Council of Chain Restaurants (NCCR) led last
fall. That campaign included launching TV spots in Indiana, Ohio,
northern California, New England, Washington, D.C., and northern
Virginia, educating voters and residents on the real environmental and
climate-related impacts that corn ethanol mandates from Washington have
wrought.
Signed into law a decade ago and expanded in 2007, the federal RFS
mandate requires increasing volumes of corn ethanol to be blended in
the nation’s fuel supply. To date, the corn ethanol mandate has failed
to deliver on the promises its proponents made back when the program
was first being debated more than a decade ago. In fact, as the growing
body of scientific research concludes, corn ethanol increases
greenhouse gas emissions and is actually worse – not better – for our
environment.
This ongoing campaign follows a series of recent national events
underscoring corn ethanol’s negative environmental and economic
impacts. Late last year, EPA’s Inspector General launched an
investigation into EPA’s push to add more corn ethanol into the
nation’s fuel supply. The IG’s investigation reflects findings in a new
study by researchers at the University of Tennessee, which concludes
the RFS’s over-reliance on corn has resulted in greater emissions of
greenhouses gases than the use of conventional fuels.
For nearly thirty years, the American Council for Capital Formation has
delivered the message to U.S. and international policymakers that a
nation’s economic strength and stability depend upon well-though-out
economic, regulatory, and environmental policies to promote capital
formation, economic growth, and a higher standard of living for all.