Archive for November, 2008

Set America Free’s Gaffney on the bailout

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Frank Gaffney in the Washington Times:

Tie the bailout to the adoption of a new “Open Fuel Standard” (OFS) that would have the effect of giving U.S. automakers a distinct, near-term competitive advantage, while making a giant leap on one of our most important national security challenges – energy security.

The idea is straightforward. The Big Three have produced approximately 6 million vehicles now on America’s highways that are equipped with what is known as a Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV) capability. FFVs can be configured to run on ethanol or methanol – fuels that can be manufactured from a variety of sources that we have here in abundance – or on gasoline, or some combination of the three.

The American auto manufacturers have also produced many more such vehicles for the Brazilian market where an OFS is effectively the law of the land, ensuring that all new cars offer consumers “fuel choice.”

Brazil’s experience is instructive. Where fuel competition is afforded and the monopoly gasoline currently enjoys in the United States is broken, the costs of powering the transportation sector are dramatically reduced. What’s more important, billions of dollars that might otherwise go to purchase oil from sources that are unstable at best and unfriendly at worst can be kept at home.

During the recent presidential campaign, both Barack Obama and John McCain endorsed the concept of an Open Fuel Standard. Legislation that would institute it has been introduced on a bipartisan basis in both the House and Senate (H.R. 6559 and S. 3303, respectively).

By incorporating the bills’ requirement that, by 2012, 50 percent of all new cars sold in this country be Flexible Fuel Vehicles – which Detroit’s auto companies have already committed and are planning to do – we can begin weaning America off of our cars’ current, absolute addiction to oil. The legislation would require that by 2015, a further 30 percent of these fleets be equipped with FFV technology, something that today costs less than $100 per car.

Imagine a President Obama as one of his first initiatives formally embracing the Open Fuel Standard, rewarding Detroit for taking a step that is highly desirable from both an environmental and national security perspective with a bailout tied to the imposition of such a standard on both domestic and foreign cars. The new chief executive could inspire his people and advance his stated agenda of achieving energy independence by calling on the American people to purchase a vehicle with FFV capability. Until foreign manufacturers retool and conform to the Open Fuel Standard, most of those FFVs will be sold by the Big Three – a shot in the arm for them, our economy and the national interest more generally.

An additional benefit for an Obama administration concerned with alleviating world poverty is that the adoption by this country of an Open Fuel Standard will have the effect of establishing it as a global standard. Car manufacturers will sell their FFVs all over the world, enabling about 100 countries to grow the fuels they need to power them, ending their dependence on foreign oil and reducing dramatically the petro-wealth transfers being used by freedom’s enemies to our collective detriment.

Set America Free’s Woolsey on the bailout

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

In a Huffington Post interview Jim Woolsey notes:

Any bailout money for Detroit should be used to maximize the speed of a shift toward the use of electric hybrids and flexible fuel vehicles. Both are necessary in breaking oil’s monopoly on transportation in the U.S. Both would utilize existing infrastructure such as electric power grids and filling stations, and the technology is already there, and in use, for the engines themselves. So it can be done relatively quickly.

When I say electric, I don’t necessarily mean all-electric cars. With an electric hybrid, you only need a battery than can take you 30-40 miles on an overnight charge — along the lines of what the Chevy Volt (scheduled for 2010) can do. Three quarters of the cars in the U.S. go less than 40 miles a day. On three days out of four, you can use all electricity. For anything beyond that, with a hybrid, you’d have liquid fuel to take you the rest of the way where you need to go.

Flexible fuel vehicles should have an “open standard,” which means they can use not only ethanol but methanol, butanol or other alcohol-based fuels. This can be done quickly. Brazil went in only three years from having 5 percent of its news cars using flexible fuel to 75 percent.

Putting this shift front and center will not only help save jobs in the auto industry but create news jobs — for example in the production of batteries for electric hybrid vehicles. It will create a whole new set of suppliers.

Read the whole thing.

Exactly why an Open Fuel Standard is necessary

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

This is a good illustration of why the Open Fuel Standard – which would ensure most new cars sold in the US have a $100 feature making them gasoline-ethanol-methanol flexible thus enabling fuel choice – is necessary. For the business case to be there for a fuel station owner that has say 10 pumps to make one of those an alcohol pump (ethanol or methanol), the density of vehicles in his area that can use the fuel needs to hit 15-20%. To get to that point (ie solve the chicken and egg problem), you need most new cars sold in the US to be flex fuel vehicles (FFVs). A couple years after an OFS is in force, that threshold is reached. Federal vehicles are a paltry percentage of the overall fleet, and don’t achieve this threshold. Thus they are generally fueled with gasoline.
Second, automakers are not making all vehicle models FFVs today, but generally just the bigger ones. OFS would ensure that one wouldn’t have to suffer a mileage hit to have fuel choice.

Set America Free member tapped for Obama cabinet

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008

Set America Free member former Sen. Tom Daschle will be our next secretary of Health and Human Services. Daschle, a strong energy independence advocate and a key ally of the biofuels industry, was the Obama campaign co-chair. We wish him good luck in his new job.

Big Three CEOs Flew Private Jets to Plead for Public Funds

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

This is really remarkable:

The CEOs of the big three automakers flew to the nation’s capital yesterday in private luxurious jets to make their case to Washington that the auto industry is running out of cash and needs $25 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy.

The CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler may have told Congress that they will likely go out of business without a bailout yet that has not stopped them from traveling in style, not even First Class is good enough.

All three CEOs – Rick Wagoner of GM, Alan Mulally of Ford, and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler – exercised their perks Tuesday by flying in corporate jets to DC. Wagoner flew in GM’s $36 million luxury aircraft to tell members of Congress that the company is burning through cash, asking for $10-12 billion for GM alone.

“We want to continue the vital role we’ve played for Americans for the past 100 years, but we can’t do it alone,” Wagoner told the Senate Banking Committee.

While Wagoner testified, his G4 private jet was parked at Dulles airport. It is one of eight luxury jets in the GM fleet that continues to ferry executives around the world despite the company’s dire financial straits.

“This is a slap in the face of taxpayers,” said Tom Schatz, President of Citizens Against Government Waste. “To come to Washington on a corporate jet, and asking for a hand out is outrageous.”

Wagoner’s private jet trip to Washington cost his ailing company an estimated $20,000 roundtrip. In comparison, seats on Northwest Airlines flight 2364 from Detroit to Washington were going online for $288 coach and $837 first class.

After the hearing, Wagoner declined to answer questions about his travel.

Ford CEO Mulally’s corporate jet is a perk included for both he and his wife as part of his employment contract along with a $28 million salary last year. Mulally actually lives in Seattle, not Detroit. The company jet takes him home and back on weekends.

I am reminded of Nero and violins. That $36 million GM private jet is the cost of making 360,000 cars gasoline-ethanol-methanol flexible right there (it’s a $100 cost per car,) breaking oil’s monopoly in the transportation sector through fuel choice. And GM has 8 such jets. Add up the Ford and Chrysler plane fleets and we’re talking the cost of making several million cars gasoline-ethanol-methanol flex fuel vehicles. Given that taxpayer money is on the table here, the trade would seem only fair. I for one don’t appreciate having taxpayer money be used to pay for someone’s private jet and 8 digit salary. If they earn it, fine, hats off, but once their hand dips into taxpayer pockets for a handout, that’s quite a different story. And I would guess others share the sentiment. Let Congress know what you think.

Breaking Free

Thursday, November 13th, 2008