>> First, for alt fuel newbies unclear as to what’s wrong with corn ethanol exactly: Catch up by reading an oldie but a goodie — Rolling Stone’s “The Ethanol Scam: One of America’s Biggest Political Boondoggles.” You can also watch Fuel – or read my review.

>> Now that you know the environmental and farming-related problems behind ethanol, you might understand why a Cali regional panel doesn’t want more ethanol fueling stations. The Southern California Association of Governments “turned down nearly $11 million in federal stimulus dollars targeted to build 55 ethanol fueling stations across Southern California.” This issue’s still a somewhat controversial one among environmentalists though.

>> The current debate over fuels in California has a lot to do with our tough global warming mitigation law, a.k.a. AB 32, and how best to meet its requirements. That law is under attack, by the way — by a group that wants to block it from being implemented until California’s unemployment drops below 5.5% for four consecutive quarters. Despite the fact that such a move would block efforts to create new green jobs, the anti AB 32-ers wanted to put it on the ballot as “California Jobs Initiative.” California Attorney General Jerry Brown renamed it “Suspends air pollution control laws requiring major polluters to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.” Yay Jerry!

>> Unfortunately, the U.S. EPA’s embraced ethanol — as well as “clean coal” and nuclear power. Writes Tom Philpott at Grist: “The Obama EPA has signed off on the absurd, abysmal Renewable Fuel Standard established under Bush a couple of years ago—ensuring that farmers will continue to devote vast swaths of land to GHG-intensive corn, of which huge portion of will ultimately be set aflame to power cars—but not before being transformed into liquid fuel in an energy-intensive process.”

Image via thefuelfilm.com

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