Thinking Nationally, Acting Locally

September 8, 2008

BY Bob Dinneen

As the two major political parties celebrate their conventions and nominees, they also craft platforms on which candidates across the nation will run. While individual candidates often adopt their own agenda separate from the party, the platform developed at each convention makes clear the issues of importance to the party as a whole.

A draft plank in this year's Republican Party platform calls for an end to the federal policies that have helped reduce America's dependence on foreign oil by increasing our use of renewable fuels such as ethanol. As I write this column the draft reads, "The U.S. government should end mandates for ethanol and let the free market work."

As those familiar with the Renewable Fuels Association well know, the RFA is agnostic when it comes to politics. We do not endorse candidates, keep voting scorecards or even have a political action committee. We endeavor to work with all lawmakers, regardless of political affiliation. So in pointing out this plank, we are not criticizing the party. Rather, the purpose is to feverishly underscore the importance of becoming involved in the political process at every level of government.

We know that support for biofuels is bipartisan. But we also know that opposition to the growth of the ethanol industry can be found in both parties. As members of this industry who have fought hard to make renewable fuels a competitive alternative, we must maintain constant vigilance. This means supporting policies which provide positive outcomes for biofuels while criticizing those that undermine our future.

On this page I recently extolled the importance of paying attention to what candidates say. Listen carefully, understand their positions and ask the tough questions that need to be asked. Above all else, vote.

I have no doubt that those involved in America's ethanol industry will be there early on Nov. 4. What I want to encourage is the yearlong involvement necessary to ensure that near-sighted, petroleum-blinded candidates do not end up in places of power that will allow them to decimate the one industry having any success reducing America's reliance on foreign
oil.

Whether the anti-ethanol plank survived at the convention wasn't known at press time. We will all know by the time you read this column. But what I can say with absolute certainty is that this idea was not nirvana visited upon those developing the platform. Rather, it originated back in a county, in a precinct somewhere in America many weeks ago.

The fact that such a draft would even be included stresses the critical necessity of political engagement at every level of government. Our industry has enjoyed success at the federal level because we have effectively taken our message of energy security, environmental stewardship and rural economic renaissance to Capitol Hill. That success has drawn increasingly ruthless smear campaigns that threaten to obscure the truth just enough to cause doubt in the minds of lawmakers about their commitment to a new generation of biofuel technologies. The fact a draft platform of one of the two major political parties includes an anti-ethanol plank is evidence of this effort.

When the dust clears and the makeup of the next administration and Congress comes into view, it simply will not be enough to say we have done our job and wait two more years for the next election cycle. We must take this opportunity to educate new leaders and reeducate those reelected about the vitality of an American biofuels industry led by America's ethanol producers.

Bob Dinneen
President and CEO
Renewable Fuels Association

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