BioFuels Journal

By Jerry Perkins, editor, BioFuels Journal

An article and broadcast report on ethanol scheduled to be released at midnight tonight (Monday, Nov. 11) by the Associated Press (AP) about the environmental impact of ethanol contains numerous errors and omits many key facts, according several ethanol organizations and an Iowa farmer quoted in the article.

In a telephone news conference Monday afternoon, Geoff Cooper, the head of research and analysis at the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), and Leroy Perkins, a farmer from Wayne County in southern Iowa, gave a point-by-point rebuttal to what they said were biased claims in the article. (Editor’s note: Leroy Perkins is not related to Jerry Perkins, BioFuels Journal’s editor.)

Perkins, who farms 170 acres west of Corydon and is a retired United Methodist Church minister, said he was interviewed numerous times by AP journalists this summer for the ethanol story and believes his views on oil alternatives, land use, and the environment were intentionally skewed to tell an inaccurate and one-sided story.

Perkins said he talked to AP reporters when they visited Wayne County in July.

Perkins said the reporters told him they were looking into out-of-state residents who were buying land in Wayne County and that they wanted to cover the Wayne County Fair.

The AP wrote a different story than he had been led to believe, Perkins said. AP reporters never mentioned to him that the focus of the story was going to be on ethanol, he stated.

“I told the reporter we think ethanol is great and I believe in it and we use it in our vehicles,” Perkins said Monday in the telephone news conference.

Perkins said he likes ethanol because it is produced in the United States, provides jobs in rural America, and makes for cheaper gasoline, he said, among other reasons.

“The article was not what I thought it would be,” he said.

“It was not good for ethanol at all. It appears their whole agenda was running down ethanol.”

Cooper thanked Perkins “for helping clear the air” about the article, which was supposed to have been embargoed from being published until midnight Monday.

Cooper said some AP subscribers broke the embargo and leaked the article and RFA and other ethanol organizations have been able to review its contents before it was published.

“We find it to be just flabbergasting,” Cooper said of the article.

“There’s more truth in the National Enquirer than in that article.”

Cooper said the RFA and other ethanol organizations provided plenty of information to AP reporters so they could present a balanced report, but that information was not used in the article.

Cooper ticked off a number of instances in the article where it was inaccurate, including cropland use, greenhouse gas emissions, and the amount of corn used by ethanol plants.

One reason that ethanol proponents are so concerned about the article is that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking into renewable fuel standards for 2014, Cooper said. There has been speculation that the EPA might lower the amount of renewable fuels that will be required to be used next year.

“We’re very concerned about those rumors that the EPA will scale back the biofuels requirements for 2014,” Cooper said.

“We’re pushing for and advocating that the EPA maintain RFS at its statutory levels.”

Asked by BioFuels Journal if anyone with concerns about the article had contacted the AP about the allegations that the article was inaccurate, Cooper answered that members of the communications staff from Fuels America, a coalition of organizations that promote renewable fuels, had contacted the AP with their concerns, but Cooper was unaware of what was said in the discussions.

Also on Monday, the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) called on the AP to correct or retract what ACE called “an error-filled story” scheduled to run in many AP news outlets tomorrow.

According to ACE Executive Vice President Brian Jennings, “At best, the AP article is lazy journalism, but at worst, it appears purposefully designed to damage the ethanol industry.

"There was an incredibly reckless disregard for the truth in the handiwork of this hit-piece.

"AP has been promoting this story by bragging about the number of reporters involved and AP’s connections in all 50 states, and yet that army of reporters missed or ignored a number of errors that could have been easily checked and avoided.

"From small errors, such as (early versions of the story) identifying Tom Daschle as a former Senator from Iowa rather than South Dakota; to big errors like indicating corn is being grown on ‘virgin lands’ for ethanol production – something that is specifically prohibited by the Renewable Fuel Standard -- the article is clearly less concerned with accuracy than it is maligning ethanol.”

ACE Senior Vice President Ron Lamberty added that the article flies in the face of AP’s stated news values and principles.

“AP’s standards say they ‘abhor inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortions’ while this story contains every one of those things.

"They say ‘always and in all media, we insist on the highest standards of integrity and ethical behavior when we gather and deliver the news’ and yet some of the people interviewed were misled about the subject of the article and we have yet to find a single ethanol producer that was interviewed for this story.”

Added Jennings, “Ethanol isn’t some public figure, abstraction, or government program that can be maligned without consequence.

"Ethanol is a real product, manufactured by real businesses, many owned by farmers, and those businesses provide thousands of good jobs and billions of gallons of clean, affordable, domestic renewable fuel to real people.

"They deserve to be protected from media that is helping spread lies about the ethanol industry by recklessly disregarding the truth.

"AP needs to correct the errors in this story or pull it and investigate how the story was created.”

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