Wesley Clark Calls For More Ethanol In Iowa Stop

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Retired General Wesley Clark spoke in Ames Thursday at Hawkeye Energy Holdings with CEO Bruce Rastetter to promote increasing the domestic use of ethanol and to increase the blend in fuels from 10 percent to 15 percent.

“We’re in the beginnings of a 21st century revolution in energy and America’s leading it in biofuels,” Gen. Clark said later in Des Moines.

Clark said increasing the use of ethanol would create jobs and strengthen national security, and is something other countries will look to the United States for.

Clark spoke in anticipation of the US Senate taking up debate on the John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-VT) authored energy bill. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also was an author of the bill but later dropped his support of it. Clark insists ethanol production and use must be a priority in the legislation.

Sen. Charles Grassley (D-IA) previously stated in a satellite interview on June 23 he supports an increase to 15 percent in ethanol blends but he does not approve of the Kerry-Lieberman Energy Bill as it stands.

Grassley said the issues with CO-2 reduction concern him with a possible negative effect on the economy if the US attempts to reduce CO-2 without any international agreements with China and India to do the same.

“CO-2 doesn’t respect political boundaries,” Grassley said.

Clark said he’s always watching the political environment and called the partisanship in Congress “ugly” and “destructive.”

“It doesn’t help us move forward as a nation,” Clark said. And that’s why he made the trip to Iowa to promote ethanol.

The retired General currently is the co-chairman of Growth Energy, which is a group that says it seeks to expand ethanol, decrease dependence on foreign oil and create American jobs at home.

“We’ve fought three wars in my lifetime that are connected to oil,” Clark said.

Clark said the oil spill has a mixed message, as there is no one group to blame singularly and it’s not what happens every time there is drilling for oil, but said it illustrates the difficulty the US now faces at retrieving oil.

“The truth is oil is increasingly difficult to acquire -- you have to go further, drill deeper, use more intensive processing to get it out of the soil,” Clark said. “Where as ethanol is increasingly available.”

Clark said it’s up to the Department of Energy to begin certifying E-15 would be safe in cars and to have auto companies begin making more vehicles that are flex-fuel which could use the E-83 pumps.

He pointed out Brazil uses very similar automobiles as the US and run on 100 percent ethanol.

“Our farmers and our technologists can create more fuel than we ever would have to import,” Clark said. “But we have to allow it into the marketplace.”

source: kcci