Governor Tom Vilsack has just returned from a two-day national conference on ethanol held in the crucial state of California. California officials want to ban M-T-B-E, the oil-based competitor of corn-based ethanol, as M-T-B-E has contaminated water there. But Californians want to be exempted from Clean Air Act rules which require the use of an additive, like ethanol, to reduce car emissions which cause smog. Vilsack talked about his trip this morning during taping of the Iowa Public Television program, “Iowa Press.”Vilsack says they are pushing for the expanded use of ethanol. He says if we can become an ethanol-producing nation, then the dependency on foreign oilwill be reduced.This past week, the U-S Environmental Protection Agency moved to ban M-T-B-E, but in a blow to corn growers, the feds intend to do away with the Clean Air Act rules which require the use of a fuel additive like ethanol in the nation’s smoggiest cities.
