{"id":7648,"date":"2017-12-01T18:39:15","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T18:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=7648"},"modified":"2017-12-01T18:39:19","modified_gmt":"2017-12-01T18:39:19","slug":"report-finds-ethanol-mandate-creates-carbon-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=7648","title":{"rendered":"Report Finds Ethanol Mandate Creates Carbon Pollution"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Millions<\/a>

Millions of acres of uncultivated habitat have been converted to cropland to grow corn and other products used to produce ethanol. Photo: Westend61\/GettyImages<\/p><\/div>\n

by Mark Richardson<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

AMARILLO, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0A\u00a0new report<\/a>\u00a0examines how the expansion of cropland in Texas and other states under the federal ethanol mandate has contributed to climate-change pollution. The mandate originally was enacted to cut energy imports, reduce pollution and lower fuel costs.<\/p>\n

But Collin O\u2019Mara, president, and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, says in addition to generating pollution, the measure has caused the loss of millions of acres of uncultivated land.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the years following enactment of the mandate in 2007, more than 7 million acres of wildlife habitat were plowed under,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is grasslands and wetlands and other habitat that threatens monarch butterflies, bees, ducks and other wildlife.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report, produced by the University of Wisconsin, ranks Texas second in the nation for its release of more than 2.7 million metric tons of carbon. Across the country, the ethanol mandate has caused the release of 115 million metric tons of carbon, the pollution equivalent of putting 20 million more cars on the road each year.<\/p>\n

Seth Spawn, the lead author of the report, says cropland expansion, no matter the cause, is having profound impacts on the land and the carbon that it holds.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor so long, we\u2019ve heard about the importance of tropical rain forests as an important carbon reserve, this research shows now is the time to also recognize the importance of the less charismatic carbon reserves here at home,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Mara says the ethanol mandate has not lived up to its original goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese findings should serve as a wake-up call to all elected officials and EPA administrator Pruitt that it\u2019s time to that we have to act with purpose and urgency to fix the ethanol mandate and to confront climate change to protect our health, our environment, our economy and wildlife,\u201d O\u2019Mara adds. \u201cDelay is only going to make the problem worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says after initially announcing plans to scale back the ethanol mandate, the EPA recently did an about-face and set the 2018 standard at or above current levels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Richardson AMARILLO, Texas \u2013\u00a0A\u00a0new report\u00a0examines how the expansion of cropland in Texas and other states under the federal ethanol mandate has contributed to climate-change pollution. The mandate originally was enacted to cut energy imports, reduce pollution and lower fuel costs. But Collin O\u2019Mara, president, and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, says in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7650,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7648\/revisions\/7650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}