Panel rejects ethanol-gas bill

BOISE – A Senate committee narrowly rejected a bill Thursday requiring all gasoline in Idaho to contain 10 percent ethanol.

With the Senate Transportation Committee split 4-4 on what to do with SB 1004, Sen. Bert Marley, D-Pocatello, cast a no vote.

“There are some questions that I need answered before I could vote for this,” Marley told the committee and a room packed full of onlookers.

The bill, backed by the Idaho Farm Bureau, would have required all gasoline sold in Idaho to be at least 10 percent ethanol by 2010.

Russ Hendricks, a lobbyist for the bureau, said the requirement would help improve air quality, reduce the state’s reliance on imported fuel and give an economic boost to farmers, whose crops would go into producing ethanol.

But officials from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality and the Idaho Conservation League said the effects of ethanol-blended fuel on air quality are mixed – it helps reduce carbon monoxide but can increase other emissions that lead to smog.

“This bill is not a perfect fit for Idaho,” said Lauren McLean, a lobbyist for the conservation league. “It could very well increase ozone. It could lead to non-attainment status” from the Environmental Protection Agency for the Treasure Valley.

Opponents also raised concerns that the costs of ethanol-blended fuel would be higher than regular fuel.

After voting against the measure, Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, said the bill had merit, but she worried about demanding a mandate. “I’m a free-market advocate,” she said.

Keough also wasn’t sure what kind of impact the bill would have on Idaho farmers.

It doesn’t say the “ethanol that ends up in our gas tanks would be produced in Idaho,” she said. “It could come from anywhere.”

At least four groups are looking into building ethanol plants in Idaho, but none is operating now. The last such plant, run by Simplot Corp., shut down in 2003.

Co-sponsors Sens. Stan Williams, R-Pingree, and Curt McKenzie, R-Nampa, supported the Farm Bureau’s claims. “The impacts go far beyond the environmental impact or the benefit Idaho farmers might see,” McKenzie said, adding that with the diminishing supply of foreign oil, alternatives need to be found.

Williams admitted, however, that the ethanol bill “is certainly not a silver bullet. There are warts on it like everything else.”

Committee Chairman Skip Brandt, of Kooskia, allowed only four people to testify. The hearing was extended from the original meeting Jan. 25 when the committee voted to wait so it could give time to other people who wanted to testify.

In a briefing on the pros and cons of the measure, state DEQ Director Toni Hardesty said the Treasure Valley would be most affected. It’s had the most air problems in the state, including ozone issues in the summer and inversions in the winter.

But Canyon County farmer Sid Freeman said the benefits to farmers and the country’s national security far outweighed any air quality issues.

“If we can’t produce our own food and fuel,” Freeman said, “then our freedom is at stake.”

Sens. Bob Geddes, R-Soda Springs and Jack Noble, R-Kuna, joined Brandt and McKenzie in voting for SB 1004 and sending it on to the full Senate. But Sens. John McGee, R-Caldwell, Brad Little, R-Emmett and David Langhorst, D-Boise, voted with Keough and Marley against it.