Unlike other alternative fuels, no vehicle modifications will be needed for the mandated ethanol content, which increases to about five percent by 2012.

Or is it? We'll measure ethanol's benefits against the promises made for it down the page, but first, a few basics. The nation will stretch more miles out of every barrel we import from, as the President says, 'unstable parts of the world.' It's hardly the 'energy independence' we've been promised for 30 years, but it's a baby step in that direction. The idea is simple: Use ethanol as the gasoline equivalent of Hamburger Helper. It's called a mandate.Īnd it's a mandate that keeps on giving, at least to the farm states, as it ratchets up the ethanol quota, nearly doubling it over the next six years - from 4.0-billion gallons in 2006 to 7.5-billion in 2012. The 551-page Energy Policy Act of 2005, signed last August, includes many sops to a blur of special interests, but one single provision rang the bell for automakers, greenies, and farmers, and for a broad coalition of ordinary motorists who were hoping for something, anything, to bring down gasoline prices starting in 2006, the average gallon of 'gas' will contain 2.78-percent ethanol.Ĭongress has made to the petroleum industry an offer it can't refuse. You will be hosing ethanol into your gas tank.

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