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The Consumer Federation of America, a consumer watchdog group, says big oil companies are trying to stop the growth of the ethanol industry… and Big Oil is using consumers’ pocketbooks in the fight.

In a report entitled “Big Oil’s Choke Hold: How Competition from Ethanol Can Help Lower Gasoline Prices for Consumers,” CFA charges that oil companies have used their market power to limit the supply of gasoline, keep consumer prices and profits high while opposing policies that would increase fuel supplies and lower prices. The report goes on to say that the increase in ethanol should have had the opposite effect. This comes from a CFA press release:

“This week when they announce their profits, the major oil companies will once again report huge windfalls at the expense of consumers who are paying record prices at the pump,” said Dr. Mark Cooper, CFA’s Director of Research. “The major oil companies have not only systematically failed to increase their refining capacity to meet growing gasoline demand, but now, threatened with
competition, are fighting hard against policies to expand production of ethanol and alternative fuels.”

The report goes on to say Big Oil has threatened to offset ethanol’s increasing production by cutting back its refining of gasoline and diesel fuel in an effort to restrict ethanol refining. Cooper also says oil company mergers have made it easier for the handful of companies to keep those gasoline supplies tight.

You can read all of CFA’s report by clicking here.

Add Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to the list of folks who suddenly seem to be a friend of ethanol. Just like in my June 5th post about Sen. John McCain, it comes down to two words for these presidential wannabes: Iowa caucus.

Democrat Clinton, just like Republican McCain, wanting to make sure she woos Iowa voters so she can grab her party’s nomination, has pulled a 180 and is now a big supporter of ethanol… at least when she’s in the Hawkeye State, according to this article in Newsday:

At one time, Clinton stood squarely with ethanol’s opponents, and voted several times against ethanol bills.

“We are providing a single industry with a guaranteed market for its products — subsidies on top of subsidies on top of subsidies and, on top of that, protection from liability,” she said during an April 2002 Senate energy bill debate. “What a sweetheart deal.”

Her tune has certainly changed now that she wants those corn farmers’ votes:

“Now, Iowa is way ahead of the rest of the country,” the presidential hopeful told listeners at a July 2 campaign stop. “What you’ve done with ethanol … you’re setting the pace.”

Political observers view her about-face as a political necessity, saying Iowa’s first-in-the-nation’s caucuses — in which residents of the country’s biggest corn-producing state vote their choice for presidential nominee — makes it politically risky to avoid kneeling at the altar of ethanol-from-corn.

I’m sure we’ll see a steady train of presidential candidates turned ethanol bandwaggoners for the next six months. Let’s just hope they’re still on board with ethanol when January 2008 is over.

VeraSun Energy will hold a grand opening ceremony for its 110 million-gallon-a-year ethanol plant at Charles City, Iowa on August 17th, 2007.

A company press release says Democratic Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama will be the keynote speaker at the event… which still has its exact time to be determined. The grand opening actually comes several months after the plant started opening:

VeraSun Charles City began production in early April, nearly three months ahead of schedule. It was the third VeraSun facility to begin production, bringing the company to its current annual capacity of 340 million gallons per year (MMGY). The plant will annually process 39 million bushels of corn and produce 350,000 tons of distillers grains for livestock feed in addition to 110MMGY of ethanol.

Don Endres, Chairman and CEO of VeraSun, will also speak at the event. Bob Dinneen, President of the Renewable Fuels Association and Rick Tolman, CEO of the National Corn Growers Association will join the group as well.

Check out this picture of the Charles City plant from VeraSun’s web site.