Comments on: Obama administration say one thing do another – auto industry edition

By: JHancock

JHancock — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:17:48 +0000

To criticize Obama given the chance, but encouraging flex fuel is probably good for national security (as is drilling here), both things will make our vehicle fleet less dependant on the Middle East. Also E85 from corn may have unintended healthcare benefits. Many naysayers claim corn ethanol will raise the price of cheap foodstuffs making the poor have a harder time. But as a medical student I have to wonder if all the government subsidized corn products in cheap foods aren’t contributing to the obesity and diabetes that is endemic in our lower social classes and if diverting subsidized corn to another industry where it won’t cause negative health impacts might not represent a net financial gain for the poorest among us through lower losses to disease and healthcare??

Not saying we actually should do this, just bringing up the point that no-one has even addressed or studied this possibility, or the possibility of not subsidizing corn at all and letting the food industry use corn products by a more natural supply/demand rather than because of subsidies lowering manufacturing costs for industries that use cheap corn products.

By: Achance

Achance — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:24:00 +0000

for vehicles not designed for ethanol. The stuff EATS hoses and gaskets that weren’t specifically designed for it. I even eats fuel tanks; some vehicles and lots of boats had fiberglass or plastic fuel tanks and there have been many instances of ethanol/gas eating the tanks.

Just the presence of ethanol is a real issue for boats because ethanol absorbs water; let the stuff sit in the tank for a while and it just absorbs water right out of the air and then your engine is trying to burn water. Most boaters are familiar with this in another form because most larger boats have alcohol cookstoves. If you don’t use them a lot, the denatured alcohol (ethanol) absorbs water and when you light your stove you get this sickly yellow, smokey flame. With a stove you can just dump the old alcohol and put in new. It is a lot harder when you have a 1-200 gallon tank of the stuff.

I really do believe though that this is the way that Comrade Obama will take our cars, boats, and even airplanes away. They’ll simply make useable fuel unavailable except at extraordinary expense. You already have to either rebuild the engine or make your own fuel, at great cost, to operate high performance cars from the ’60s and earlier. My boat would need all new fuel lines, fuel pumps and new or completely rebuilt carburetors to run ethanol fuels and I’d have to completely change the way I fuel it and how I keep fuel aboard. Changing out the carbs and fuel pumps would be somewhere between $1-2000 at today’s prices. Should such a change be mandated, the price would skyrocket. Since boats are about the only thing using carburetors anymore, a Holley or Rochester carburetor that was at most a couple of hundred bucks a few years ago, is now close to a thousand bucks new and $250- 300 or more rebuilt, usually badly.

By: kyle8

kyle8 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:50:26 +0000

Thanks for nothing Bob Dole! More evidence that we do not need any half assed non-conservatives in the Republican party! If you are not a fiscal conservative, get out!

By: bobojake

bobojake — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:11:38 +0000

Rockfort Illinois.
Gasoline is shipped in piplines across the nation but because of the corrosive nature of ethanol all shipments have to be by specially designed and fitted(which cost more) railroad cars equipped to handle a fuel that has the energy of about 75% of gasoline and cost 30% more to make and handle not counting the human hazardous in its transportation across the United States.
Now don’t you think reid, peloski, schummmmmmmer, obama would of been smart enough to think this through before shoving their foney energy bill through Congress last time.
Now we are suppose to believe obama, reid, peloski, dodd, schummmmmmmm mmmmer, waxman, rambo the vulgar , axlehead, kennedy, kerry, and the rest of the bloomin incompetents as they try and shove National Heathcare and Craps and Shove energy TAX on the citizens and hardworking middle class taxpayers of this great Nation.
Tomorrow turn the ABC propaganda machine off and call your Senators and Congressman and remind them they are working for the Citizens/voters and not obama, rambo the vulgar or axlehead.
We will remember in the next election every Senator or Congressman that vote for either National Heathcare or the foney fraudulent CRAPS and SHOVE Carbon TAX that will destroy America.
We will target all Senators and Congressman when election time comes with T-Parties in their DISTRICTS REMINDING VOTERS HOW THEY didn’t give a darn if voters could buy gas to go to work, buy food to feed their families, buy clothes for their children, or pay their rent/mortage because of the CARBON TAX.
Everything will double in price obama how can you even begin to justify such destruction to our economic system. What about you reid? What about you schummmer? what about you peloski??? What about you dodd?? What about you frank??? what about you rangel????

By: gonzo55

gonzo55 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:00:49 +0000

get a mountain of bad energy policy crammed down your throat. If our side stands for one thing, it’s evidence-based policy. We betray this by cowtowing to the “global warming” alarmists who are just looking for an excuse to cram through their socialist agenda with their bulldozer of hope.

By: rmullins

rmullins — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:49:53 +0000

Or so they say. There no ways to debate these people at all. It there right your wrong and if you find that there wrong, they will just say that there right anyway.

By: drothgery

drothgery — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:31:51 +0000

Mandating that all new cars and light trucks sold in the US after a certain date be flex-fuel vehicles is actually one of the least brain-dead environmental regulations they could come up with (especially if they linked it to both ditching ethanol subsidies and the tarrif on imported ethanol). At least then if someone came up with a way to make ethanol that’s cheaper than gas, there’d be someone to sell it to.

By: Next93

Next93 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:40:47 +0000

It doesn't matter if they have no idea what they're talking about, the fact that they're "progressives" makes them smarter than YOU. And they'll be the first to tell you so.
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