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Thursday, 16 February 2012
THE OPEN FUEL STANDARD ACT:
ACT! FOR AMERICA HELPS MAKE PROGRESS ON THE HILL
WITH AN IMPORTANT ALLY
By Lisa Piraneo, Director of Government Relations
Dear Harold,
If you’ve been tracking recent news from Iran, you know that their state media recently reported
that
the country plans to cut oil exports to six European countries as a retaliatory measure for new
sanctions. Though the U.S. does not purchase Iranian oil, the threat alone has an impact on the
price we pay for gasoline. Why? Because Iran is a member of OPEC and the cartel largely sets
he worldwide price of
oil.
Frankly, the trending price of gasoline even before Iran announced its recent threat should
certainly cause you much concern. Today it is higher than it ever has been before at this time of
year and the expectation is that it will continue to increase as summer approaches. But this is
nothing new—this
up and down trend is a pattern we’ve been seeing since the early 1970’s!
But there’s a solution—and you can play a role in achieving it.
The Open Fuel Standard Act, legislation that will finally free us from OPEC’s stranglehold,
continues
o gain bi-partisan support from Members of the U.S. Congress. Why is this issue different?
As one
uch federal legislator recently told me, “Because when it comes to national security, we need
to loo
k
at things differently.”
The beauty of legislation like the Open Fuel Standard Act (H.R.1687 in the U.S. House and
S.1603 in
the Senate) is that the only thing it mandates is competition—something we don’t currently enjoy
when
must be used in gasoline powered vehicles produced or sold in America, just that it must be something inaddition to gasoline.
As Brigitte Gabriel points out to our elected officials when she travels with me to the Hill, one of
the
great things about the United States is that we have the option of choice for goods and services—
our preferred cereal, our preferred hammer, our preferred pet food. But why not our preferred
form
of liquid fuel?
The Open Fuel Standard Act can change all that…at absolutely no cost to the Federal government
and less than $100 per vehicle to the consumer.
Would you pay $100 to stop funding terrorism, kick OPEC in the teeth, have a choice about what fuel
you purchase (resulting in saving you $1,000 per year per car under today’s price levels), and spur job creation in America—all at the same time?
The article below describes how one man brought competition to a once closed system of producers.
This man, Marc Goldman, now works closely with us as part of the Open Fuel Standard coalition.
But it’s critical that your elected officials don’t just hear from Marc, Brigitte and me. They need to
hear from the folks back home, or this bill won’t ever see the light of day. You have the power to
make a difference!
Have you written a letter to your Representative and Senator encouraging their support of the
Open Fuel Standard Act? If not, please do so today by selecting the two Open Fuel Standard links
on ourContact Congress page (one for the House bill and one for the Senate).
Newsmax
The Milk Man’s Lesson: Car Choice Can Work
Friday, February 3, 2012 11:46 AM
By: Christopher Ruddy
Christopher Ruddy's Perspective: Can the United States create jobs, lower the price of fuel,
reduce emissions, and become energy-independent all at the same time?
The answer is, “Yes — and rather quickly.”
The simple answer correlates with a rather simple solution being evangelized by Marc Goldman, a
former milk company executive from New Jersey.
Marc is not a household name, but he once made big headlines in New York for taking on the state’s powerful dairy interests and a system that kept milk prices artificially high by limiting competition
among dairies.
Marc spent a small fortune and considerable time in court challenging that system, and in January
1987, won the right for his Farmland Dairies to sell milk in all of New York City and its suburbs —
a victory that led to a sharp drop in milk prices for many New Yorkers.
The milk story really has nothing to say directly about energy, but it does have something to say
about Marc, who has sold his milk company and now lives in Boca Raton, Fla.
Today, Marc spends his time on another worthy crusade — promoting the Open Fuel Standard
Act of 2011, known in the House as H.R. 1687 and in the Senate as S. 1603.
The proposed bills create a “free market for fuel,” just as his victory in New York created a free
market for milk, by requiring car manufacturers to give owners a choice in the fuel they use in
their vehicles.
The bills call for “fuel competition” to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign imports through
greater use of domestic energy sources, and for an annually increasing percentage of automobiles
sold in the UnitedStates to be flex-fuel capable.
This new law would require vehicles to be manufactured flex-fuel ready, adding less than $100 to
the cost of each car, which would allow drivers to easily change the type of fuel their engine uses
— from gasoline to other types of fuels, such as methanol or ethanol.
Such an option is available today in most cars in Brazil, where massive production of sugarcane
ethanol has made Brazil the world’s first sustainable bio-fuel economy. It’s no accident that Brazil’s economy has been booming in recent years as the United States’ sags under high petroleum costs.
Rightfully, critics have complained that if the United States sharply increased the production of
ethanol, made from corn or sugar, food prices would skyrocket globally.
This would be bad for everyone, and especially harm the poor.
But Marc points out that the United States has huge reserves of natural gas — by some estimates
over 2,500 trillion cubic feet of recoverable reserves. He notes that natural gas is easily converted into methanol, and methanol use could save drivers at least 80 cents per gallon for the same energy a
gallon of gasoline today provides.
Marc’s point here is that once the fuel option opens up in Americans’ cars, the free market will
work to meet the demand. Natural gas will boost demand and spur other forms of biomass fuel to
be mass produced. And, as demand for oil drops, the fall-off in petroleum prices will be catastrophic
for
suppliers.
Today, the lion’s share of global oil reserves is under the control of OPEC, a cartel with many
member states that are openly hostile to American interests.
As for environmental concerns, experiments show that methanol and ethanol fuels yield fewer hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions than gasoline.
It’s a win-win for consumers, the environment, and the country.
To the bills’ opponents, perhaps energy expert Dr. Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer and author, puts it best in a National Review article:
“In whose interest is it that Americans should continue to be denied fuel choice, that America’s vast natural gas, coal, and biomass remain unusable as a source of liquid fuel, that America continues to give hundreds of billions of dollars each year to foreign potentates bent upon our destruction, instead of paying our own people to make fuel out of our own resources, that a foreign cartel retains unlimited power to raise the cost of our fuel?
“We can set ourselves free, but action is required.”
© Newsmax. All rights reserved.
REMEMBER, YOUR VOICE COUNTS!
IF EACH OF US DOES JUST A LITTLE, TOGETHER WE CAN
ACCOMPLISH A LOT!
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ACT for America
P.O. Box 12765
Pensacola, FL 32591
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