While all citizens have the right to debate what transportation fuels should or should not be required or financially supported by our government, it is helpful to have a complete understanding of the issues.

First, let's consider oil. Petroleum has a near complete monopoly on transportation fuel in the United States. Petroleum is a finite resource that is becoming harder for us to recover. Here in Minnesota, an increasingly large percentage of the petroleum products from local refineries are coming from the Alberta Tar Sands, using a landscape-scarring, energy-heavy process that increases the fuel's lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 20 percent.

It is another type of emission from petroleum based fuels that has the American Lung Association in Minnesota (I'm the ALAMN comunications director) concerned. Emissions from vehicle tailpipes are the single largest source of outdoor air pollution in the state. The negative effects of air pollution on human health are well-known and well-documented. That is why ALAMN has strongly supported the use of cleaner-burning biofuels such as biodiesel and E85.

On the topic of subsidies, it is hard to think of any aspect of modern transportation that is not subsidized by the government: our highways, bridges, ports, and airports are all subsidized, as are biofuels. But to put this all in proper context, I suggest a recent report by the Environmental Law Center which found that fossil fuels like petroleum benefited from $72 billion dollars in subsidies during a seven-year study period, while total subsidies for renewable fuels was $29 billion for the same seven years.

Minnesota's five percent biodiesel requirement is the first of its kind in the nation, and has been rightfully hailed as a common-sense “first step” toward breaking our addiction to oil. The private sector has not been idle on this issue. Enterprise Rent-a-Car has just announced that it will use biodiesel-fueled shuttle buses at all of its locations nationwide. General Motors has announced that its 2011 lineup of heavy-duty pickups will be certified to use biodiesel blends up to 20 percent.

We are also a leader in cleaner-burning E85. Use of E85 in state-owned vehicles increased 25 percent in 2009 over 2008. Minnesota also has the greatest concentration of retail E85 outlets in the United States – more than 350, with more stations opening soon.

Public policies that encourage a 'clean air choice' at the pump can help our local economy, help to clear our air of harmful and dangerous pollutants, and will give Minnesota --a state with no fossil fuel resources of our own--greater energy independence.

What could be more natural than that?

Corn based ethanol is a heavily subsidized scam. And E85 is a joke.
The oil and gas industry is the largest tax PAYING industry in the U.S.
Right now we need to suck it up and pay carbon taxes, especially on gasoline, to encourage conservation and pay for energy efficient public transport, etc.

Great point Rolf. Its funny how we all turn into conservationists when oil hits 147.00/bbl as it did a while ago.

In the last three years, thanks to the new “fracting” technology used in oil shales, we have discovered a 100 year supply of natural gas sitting under the US, and the producers have not been able to cut back fast enough. So now we have a supply glut, and we are almost out of storage. If the industry gets organized, then gas can become the 20 year bridge we need, until energy alternatives kick in. That makes me a big supporter of the “Pickens Plan.”

Crude is now at $70 climbing out of the recession. Imagine how high it will get when all economies are functioning again. The financial crisis hurt the ability of big oil companies to get financing for large development projects in oil. These projects can take five to ten years to bring online. That means we will get higher oil prices sooner. We may get a pull back to the $50s, but the $30’s would be a stretch. The $32 low was an artificial one caused by a complete absence of liquidity in all markets. I don’t think we’ll see those lows again.

I think it may dip into the 50s, then up, perhaps skyrocketing to $300 before dropping back down to $3 after alternatives take over and demand vanishes. But that’s at best 20 years out. If we can wean ourselves off oil in 20 years, it would be a huge accomplishment.

Robert Moffitt is the communications director for the American Lung Association of Minnesota. The ALA receives significant support from the corn farmers associations throughout the U.S.
One virtue of the ethanol craze is that farmers are receiving a better price for their corn. But food for fuel does nothing for the environment, and all that extra nitrogen and phosphorous in the Mississippi isn't helping.

The newest report from the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) is devastating for biofuels. It reads as follows:

"The increased use of renewable fuels will also impact emissions with some emissions such as hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides (NOx), acetaldehyde and ethanol expected to increase and others such as carbon monoxide (CO) and benzene expected to decrease. However, the impacts of these emissions on criteria air pollutants are highly variable from region to region. Overall the emission changes are projected to lead to increases in population-weighted annual average ambient PM and ozone concentrations, which in turn are anticipated to lead to up to 245 cases of adult premature mortality."

I agree with you both on the need to encourage conservation. Conservation should always be the first path taken -- it's 'the low hanging fruit' of the various solutions to our energy and transportation challenges.

Ditto on the need for energy efficient public transportation. It make a lot of sense, and helps to reduce both traffic congestion and air pollution.

As for the Pickens Plan, we may see some aspects of that plan up close here in Minnesota, as T.B. Pickens recently announced that he was scrapping plans for a massive wind energy project in Texas (due to a lack of transmission lines) and investing instead in two large projects in Minnesota and Canada.

I predicted the demise of the Pickens plan when it was first announced - not because of a lack of transmission lines. Large scale wind farms don't make economic sense without the same massive subsidies that go to biofuels. Pickens also justified his scheme on the notion it would free up scarce natural gas for his CNG vehicles business.
Wind doesn't replace reliable gas plants, and we have plenty of NG without T Boone's windmills. If he comes to MN, he will be looking for lots of taxpayer support.
Finally Texas has 3 times the name plate wind power of any other state and per ERCOT in 2009, Texas got one percent(1%) of its electric energy from wind.

A good example of a natural gas power plant making sence in Minnesota is Xcel's Riverside plant. Once a coal-burner, it was converted to natural gas last year. The new natural gas boilers are much smaller and more efficient than the old coal-fired boilers, and they come with their own steam turbines to generate electricity. Xcel wisely kept their old turbines installed after the conversion. Instead of sending the waste steam from the natural gas boilers up the stack, they first divert it to the old turbines, which produce an additional 80 megawatts, about enough to power 10,000 homes. Xcel converted two other metro-area power plants from coal to natural gas.

Well stated, Robert. For the next few years, all we have to make major inroads in coal burning is natural gas. Wind and solar are supplements, not substitutes.

Longer term it's nuclear.

E85 and corn ethanol generally is not a clean air choice. When all factors are considered, petroleum is more environmentally friendly than corn ethanol. Not that oil is the solution, just that biofuels are really a false choice.

I was not aware that the American Lung Association was receiving money from the ethanol lobby, but that goes a long way toward explaining why their spokeperson consistently misrepresents the evidence about biofuels.

Does anyone remember that natural gas, which is refined from what comes from the ground to remove sulfer and other undesirables. is in fact a fossil fuel??????????? I grew up on the ND oil fields, less than two miles from where a gas plant was built. There were many downsides to the oil industry up there: although it kept many small farmers in farming, it did nothing for the health of the local population. I, to this day, have a love/hate relationship to it.

In defense of T. Boone Pickens, his original one sentence energy solution was, "Fast track nuclear, move natural gas to transportation, and research clean coal."
Obviously the nuke part was too politically "hot", so he had to do the wind nonsense.
Clean coal is an oxymoron. So poor Mr. Pickens was left with wind and natural gas. He got a lot of steam for his investment in CLNE. Because of this I think he sold some or all his interest in CLNE some time ago.
I think his original intentions were pure, but they got corrupted or appeared corrupted.