Until sufficient data is collected, science often proceeds on the basis of assumption.  Once data accumulates, the initial assumptions are often found to be false.  For example, thalidamide and DES seemed like good ideas at the time.  So did reformulated gasoline with ethanol, ten years ago.  Science now knows better.

The following quote by Blakeman Early, representing the National American Lung Association before the US Senate Subcommittee on Clean Air in 2000, is typical:

"The ALA [American Lung Association] and many environmental groups supported a 2% oxygen requirement for RFG [reformulated gasoline] in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 based on the assumption at the time such requirement would guarantee reductions of VOCs, and toxics.  We now know we were wrong.
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The volatility increases that ethanol causes in summertime can overwhelm any benefit it provides in reducing CO tailpipe emissions, sulfur dilution or aromatics dilution.  That is why the ethanol industry only talks about tailpipe emissions benefit from ethanol in RFG.  The ethanol industry often quotes last year's National Research Council study of reformulated gasoline as finding that CO reduction credit should be included for ethanol in EPA's complex model for RFG because CO tailpipe emissions contribute to ozone formation.  But they fail to acknowledge what we believe to be a more important finding.  The NRC report stated, '...the increase in the evaporative emissions from the ethanol-containing fuels was significantly larger than the slight benefit obtained from the lowering of the CO exhaust emissions using the ethanol-containing fuel.'
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The bottom line: the reduction in CO tailpipe emissions obtained by using ethanol in summertime gasoline are not worth the increase in evaporation and the increases in NOX emissions from a smog contribution point of view. Incidentally, the increases in evaporation do not just contribute to ozone formation.  Since the gasoline also contains toxic aromatics, such as benzene, these will evaporate more readily along with the ethanol.  While ethanol may dilute the amount of benzene in a gallon of gasoline, the amount of benzene that ends up in the ambient air due to increase evaporation from the fuel may be greater than if the ethanol were not added at all."

The National Research Council study referred to above is regarded as the definitive scientific study of ethanol.  The title of their news release says it all "Commonly Available Ethanol and MTBE Gasoline Blends Do Little to Reduce Smog".

Even the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor, who tries as hard as possible to put a happy face on their state's aggressive ethanol policy, admits "we think the NRC report is currently the most independent, authoritative document available to policy makers."

Very recent evidence suggests even more serious cause for alarm regarding ethanol use. Professor James Garvey of SUNY-Buffalo has discovered that nitric oxide, a common air pollutant, combines readily with ethanol to form highly reactive gas-phase clusters.  The implication of this discovery is that the sum of NO and ethanol emissions is more dangerous than its parts.

Of course the EPA is well aware of the pollution problems caused by ethanol, especially the fact that it increases serious hydrocarbon evaporative emissions during warm weather.  In Milwaukee, the EPA addressed this problem by requiring that ethanol be blended with a special low volatility gas base in the summer to offset ethanol's volatility.  But this special base was expensive and contributed to shortages, so the EPA recently waived this requirement.

So now, tax-payers have the privilege of being bled of tax dollars to provide huge corporate welfare payments for a product that seriously increases air pollution. To any right-minded person, this can only be an outrage!  Enough is enough, it is time to curb the corrosive effects of corporate welfare and their indentured politicians!

Despite overwhelming scientific evidence, the EPA denied California's request for an ethanol waiver.  California Governor Gray Davis called the EPA requirements "a straitjacket mandate" that is "not based on science but on politics, pure and simple".  "The potential for harm to Californians, both economically and environmentally, leaves me no choice but to fight back with both guns blazing."