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Custer County, Nebraska | That system the oil industry, an incredible amount of efficiency has come from the proficient threat of eminent domain to place pipelines.
Us in agriculture are quite aware that with government benefits come intrusive government involvement. Every use, every threat of taking a landowners ground unless they agree to what that pipeline considers sufficient compensation, paved the road towards the RFS.
I agree that with the current mood of the country the RFS is at risk, however we would like to run honest politics the reality is politics is dirty. It is deal making behind closed doors. All involved know it. The oil industry does it and our agriculture organizations as well. This is where the RFS could be saved if couched with the correct senators and representatives.
A vocal congressman could publically offer an amendment to a Repeal the RFS Bill that would strip the right of Eminent Domain from all future oil industry projects. That would be a nuclear bomb to the entire oil transportation industry. The political pressure behind the scenes would be tremendous but with the current mood of the country nobody would ever want such legislation to come up for a vote... it could pass.
That is a dirty way to do politics but all we need is a telegenic farm state congressman who would would keep repeating "if it is wrong for ethanol to force its way into the fuel supply... It is wrong for a pipeline to force its way across private property."
Now we need a future past mandates. In farm states the small amount of E-85 sales is an embarrassment. Agriculture needs to support its own product but I'm willing to bet that each of us here on AgTalk knows a neighbor that refuses to use E-10 let alone higher blends. If there isn't great demand each fuel station may offer the higher blends but will price those blends at a greater margin to make up for lower sales. That drives the sales down more until some of those blender pumps we paid to put in are taken out. Now the sad situation is pricing E-85 at a less margin may move more gallons AND make the gas station more money. The question farmers and our organizations need to ask is how do we lower prices at the pump for higher blends?
I'm afraid that lower spot prices for high blend ethanol fuels will just be padded with high margins at the fuel outlets. Some of those gas stations are gun shy about pricing ethanol to move. We need a way to reward those stations that move the most gallons. Us in agriculture get free hats, jackets, etc from our input suppliers. Do we even have any outreach to the final destination of our product? I know these stations don't purchase ethanol directly, but they are the most important cog in the whole field-to-gas tank.
We need to treat these guys good... maybe some sort of incentive program. Now obviously we can't rebate a percent of each sales to each station, but we need a program that provides monetary compensation to the highest sales. We need to create motivation, perhaps temporarly, to try and break the High Margin/Low Sales atmosphere that seems to have developed. Call it a contest and take some of our check off funds, pool it into a large amount and offer the jackpot to the station with the greatest sales. Perhaps we could see if lower margins would translate into greater sales. | |
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Consumer $$$$ and energy...
