Ethanol mandate going nowhere

BOISE – A proposed requirement for Idaho service stations to eventually sell gasoline that contains 10 percent fuel made from corn or straw died in a House committee Wednesday, as lawmakers opted to study the issue this summer instead.

The bill passed the Senate 27-8 on Feb. 23, with proponents arguing that Idaho-made ethanol blended with gas would help wean America from dependence on foreign oil and provide farmers with another market for crops.

The measure, promoted by the Idaho Farm Federation Bureau, would have required gas for cars to be blended with ethanol as soon as Idaho has production facilities that can produce at least 30 million gallons of ethanol annually from Idaho-grown crops.

But critics Wednesday said too many questions remain about whether such a mandate was a good thing, including the cost for service stations to retrofit storage tanks, the logistics of delivering ethanol and concerns about possible interruptions to the fuel supply.

“It needs some time to get the questions answered, so in the future, if problems come up, nobody can say, ‘This bill was railroaded through,’ ” Rep. Dell Raybould, R-Rexburg and chairman of the House Environment, Energy and Technology Committee, said after the 9-5 vote in favor of the interim study.

Other concerns included whether it requires more energy to make ethanol than is actually derived from the grain alcohol.

A 2005 study by professors at Cornell University and the University of California, Berkeley, concluded that ethanol takes more energy to make than it produces.

Ethanol producers dispute the finding.

When it passed the Senate three weeks ago, lawmakers heralded the plan as part of the effort to nudge America toward promoting domestic, sustainable energy sources – something President Bush backed in his State of the Union address.

Minnesota, Hawaii and Montana have statewide mandates, and other states considering them include Washington, Missouri and Wisconsin.

Wisconsin’s legislature votes on its measure today. Washington’s measure is awaiting the governor’s signature.

“It’s important to get this started,” said Rep. Ann Rydalch, R-Idaho Falls. “This is an idea that’s ripe, it’s ready and we have companies that are interested” in producing the fuel in Idaho.

Iogen Corp. is considering sites between Blackfoot and Idaho Falls for a proposed $300 million refinery, though the Ottawa, Canada-based company has said that whether it builds a plant in the United States depends more on federal incentives contained in the 2005 federal energy bill – not state-level legislation.

Cleaner-burning ethanol has been touted as a way to slash air pollution and Idaho farmers believe it could become a lucrative end-market for their crops, the Farm Bureau’s Russ Hendricks has said.

Still, lawmakers were unwilling to support the plan without first answering questions about its feasibility. Even with a law, it would take at least five years before in-state production reaches the 30 million-gallon threshold that trips mandatory fuel blending, proponents have said.

“Ethanol has a very bright future,” said Rep. Russ Mathews, R-Idaho Falls, who voted for the study committee.