After more than a year of suffering from neutrality, house orders and travel locks, millions of Americans are eagerly returning to the country’s highways for their long-awaited vacation and travel. As a result, demand for gasoline has risen and pump prices have been at unprecedented levels since 2014.
In recent weeks, regular gas prices have risen by an average of $ 3.17 per gallon, an increase of about 50 percent over the same period last year. With high oil prices threatening to weaken the country’s continued economic recovery, it is easy to see why the Binden administration is looking for ways to alleviate American pain at the pump.
But why did the White House choose to respond to higher pump prices by pushing OPEC + countries to increase oil production? It was a confusing move in the political arena. Above all, the call for countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia to increase their production of crude, crude oil is in direct conflict with the president’s goals on climate change, clean energy, job creation, and energy security.
At the same time, due to the geopolitical instability and instability of the minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries, the administration’s ambitious electric vehicle goals are being severely damaged. Afghanistan’s rapid fall gives the Taliban regime the world’s largest supply of lithium – the most important mineral for batteries – to Russia and China, which control the world’s precious metals market. In fact, the Pentagon has warned that Afghanistan could become a “lithium Saudi Arabia.”
Biden’s administration has the opportunity to turn to the United States for help before looking at OPEC + countries or mineral-rich countries such as Afghanistan, China and Bolivia. At the same time, renewable fuels such as ethanol have a proven track record of 40 years of success in reducing carbon emissions, supporting well-paying clean energy projects and reducing imports.
Four decades of investment and innovation by ethanol producers have yielded significant results in low-carbon fuels. Today’s corn-based ethanol directly reduces carbon emissions by 52 percent compared to gasoline, according to a recent study from the Argon National Laboratory of the Department of Energy. A similar study by Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Tuff University scientists showed that the ethanol of corn increased by an average of 46 percent compared to gasoline.
In response to programs such as Renewable Energy (RFS), California’s Low Carbon Oil Standard and Oregon Pure Oil, with the return of the Bidon administration to the Paris Agreement, low carbon creation and investment speeds are accelerating. We strongly believe that ethanol will have a net zero carbon footprint in the coming years as the supply chain embraces carbon sequestration and sequencing technologies, uses more renewable energy and biogas to produce biorefineries, and expands carbon-efficient animal production. Of course, members of my organization sent a letter President BidenHACC chairman calls for “complete evacuation” of US troops in Afghanistan A.D. In July, ethanol promised to be fully carbon-neutral in 2050 or earlier.
To make this vision a reality, our industry is looking to Biden Management and Congress to take more innovative and far-reaching steps in the biofuel market. The first step should be to implement strong RFS volumes and abandon the biofuel mix requirements under pressure from oil filters or push their blending obligation on retail gas station owners. The congressional hearing about that were exactly where the congressional hearing about that were coming from.
Before we return to the Persian Gulf to find answers to our country’s energy and climate challenges, let’s shoot at the heart of the American heart. The solution to high pump prices and decarbonation is in the fields of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and other Middle Eastern states – not in the oil fields of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries.
Jeff Cooper is the President and CEO of the Renewable Energy Association.
.