Allen: Bush energy plan needs funding

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Tom Allen believes increased federal funding will be needed to make President Bush’s proposal to substantially reduce oil consumption by 2017 a reality.

Bush, who made his proposal in his State of the Union message Tuesday night, “has not always followed through in the past on what he proposed about energy,” said Allen of Maine, a Democrat who sits on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. “But assuming [the president] and Congress, together, take some big steps to increase the production of ethanol, there are a number of different ways to get it.”

Ethanol, a fuel additive that helps gasoline burn cleanly, is commonly produced in the United States from corn. However, in order to reach the president’s proposed 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels within the next 10 years, more energy-efficient methods of production are needed, said Sara Banaszak, senior economist at the American Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C.

“Increased ethanol production from corn could drive up the price of the crop for consumers and livestock owners,” Banaszak said. “Cellulosic ethanol, produced from wood chips and grasses as opposed to corn, is more energy- and cost- efficient.”

Allen said the federal government needs to guarantee loans or provide financial assistance to individuals and companies who want to produce ethanol from materials other than corn.

“Brazil has become free of foreign oil by investing in ethanol from sugar cane and by creating a distribution network of ethanol pumps at filling stations across the country,” he said. “There is great potential here, and we should do everything we can to make sure Maine is part of the action.”

But Banaszak pointed out that prior to its ethanol conversion, Brazil had consumed a significantly smaller amount of gasoline than does the United States.

“Brazil is a very different case as far as gas consumption,” she said. “It requires a lot more fuel to replace gasoline in America than to replace it in Brazil, where they produce ethanol from sugar cane, which grows in the tropical climate.”

Maine residents consumed an estimated 740 million gallons of gasoline in 2005, according to the most recent Department of Energy report, said Jamie Py, president of Maine Oil Dealers Association.

Fuel dealers and wholesalers would need to upgrade their equipment before they could accommodate alternative fuels, he added.

“The industry will sell whatever is required by the federal and state law,” Py said. “If it’s an ethanol product, it will just mean we have to change some of the infrastructure within the state and the nation so it can handle the fuel.”

Ethanol, unlike gasoline, does not separate when mixed with water. To accommodate the proposed 35 billion gallon increase, gas pipes, which currently accept up to a 10 percent ethanol mix, would need to be reconfigured.

Allen also said improvements in the auto industry could aid the president’s 10-year energy proposal, decreasing the country’s reliance on foreign oil.

“I believe we could achieve that kind of goal if we made significant efforts to improve mileage for cars and trucks,” Allen said. “With more effective vehicles plus ethanol, some fairly dramatic steps can be made.”