The devastating case against ethanol and NM’s proposed “clean fuel standard”

For several years now Gov. Lujan Grisham has pushed and Democrats in New Mexico’s Legislature have rejected various bills which would impose a “clean fuel standard” on motorists. The effort claims to be about reducing the “carbon intensity” of fuels put in gas tanks, we at the Rio Grande Foundation have noted that the effort would entail a great deal of ethanol being added to our gas.

Sadly, while New Mexico is not a serious corn growing state, our congressional delegation all of whom claim to be environmentalists, remain unwilling to challenge this colossal waste of tax dollars.

Michael Grunwald, a columnist writing in the New York Times has written a column highlighting why adding ethanol to gas is a foolish policy FROM THE ENVIRONMENTALIST perspective. Here are a few choice points:

• It’s fairly well-known that farm-grown fuels like corn ethanol and soy biodiesel accelerate food inflation and global hunger, but they’re also a disaster for the climate and the environment.
• Worldwide, a land mass larger than California was used to grow under 4 percent of transportation fuel in 2020.
• Biofuels “increase greenhouse gas emissions through the conversion of carbon-rich forests, wetlands and grasslands into farmland, expanding our agricultural footprint while shrinking nature’s.”