U.S. ethanol group wants origin labeling for oil

NEW YORK, Sept 1 (Reuters) - A U.S. ethanol industry group is pushing lawmakers to craft legislation requiring gasoline filling stations to inform customers what country their fuel came from in hopes of increasing awareness about money spent on oil imported from overseas.

"Most Americans don't want their paychecks going to Venezuela and other regimes that don't agree with and support the U.S," said retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, who co-chairs Growth Energy, the industry group behind the push.

Clark said Growth was targeting lawmakers such as U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, chairman of the House agriculture committee, and others from fuel-producing states, and urging them to craft legislation that would require such labeling.

He said the United States spends tens of billions of dollars a year on protecting shipping lanes for oil. Some of that could be saved by increasing production of U.S. oil and developing alternative fuels like ethanol and fuel-sipping cars, he added.

U.S. oil production peaked in the 1970s which means the world's largest fuel consumer has to import most of its crude.

Clark stopped short of saying the labeling would cut U.S. consumption of oil from countries whose governments are not friendly to Washington. But he said it would give consumers more choice on deciding what kind of fuel, or alternative fuel automobiles, they want to buy.

U.S. ethanol producers, pushing to boost the allowable level of ethanol in regular gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent, could benefit if U.S. dependence on foreign oil fell.

Phil Flynn, an oil analyst at PFGBest Research in Chicago, said Growth's strategy was a sign the ethanol industry, which has gone through several bankruptcies this year and last, was experiencing troubles during the recession.

"The industry is hurting right now and they want to get a boost by trying to get a little nationalism around a barrel of oil and push alternative fuels," he said.

But even if Growth persuaded lawmakers to craft a bill and it got passed, such a plan could be hard to implement because of the rivers of fuel that flow from refineries which can get mixed by the time they reach filling stations. It would be even harder to make any dent in sales from foreign oil producers, Flynn said.

"At the end of the day if we end up not buying that oil, it's just going to be bought by someone else."

Growth Energy also launched a website called labelmyfuel.com which details its caluculations on the cost of American dependence on foreign oil.


Source:reuters