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Questions emerge as producers ask to allow more ethanol in fuel

By Jesus Rangel-Montelongo on May 7, 2009 10:24 AM | No Comments

A gas station north of Richmond, Kan. on US 59 advertises prices for E10 gasoline, regular unleaded and diesel fuel. The national ethanol advocacy firm Growth Energy and local ethanol groups are pushing for an increase of the blends of etanol allowed in regular fuel to 15 and possibly 20 percent.

Ethanol processors want more of their product in regular gasoline.
Corn growers want more ethanol, too.

     The Kansas legislature passed a resolution urging the federal government to let more ethanol in the regular fuel supply.
     But Sharon Billings, professor of global change biology and biogeochemistry at the University of Kansas, will lead a study this summer to find out how increased land usage for agriculture, and uses like fuel, affect the carbon balance.
     "Land is not free," Billings says. "If we use a greater amount of land for fuel then there are obvious costs."
      "If those decisions, driven by economics, change land from what is native to agriculture, then for sure you are going to be generating greenhouse gases."
     Billings is one of many wondering out loud what costs increased ethanol usage has, as ethanol advocates fight this latest battle.

Ethanol's newest push
     While gasoline is limited to a ten percent ethanol blend right now, Growth Energy, a national ethanol advocacy firm, wants to increase the allowable amount of ethanol to blend up to 15 percent. There are vehicles labeled as Flexible Fuel Vehicles that can take up to 85 percent ethanol, but ethanol processors may hit capacity if the amount allowed in regular, everyday gasoline is not increased.
     A March letter from the co-chairs of Growth Energy to Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson said that if the 10-percent-only barrier was not removed, the ethanol market could be saturated within months, because more ethanol would hit its allowed capacity.
     Mary Jane Stankiewicz, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs of the Topeka-based Kansas Association of Ethanol Processors says that ethanol made from homegrown corn is good for the economy and creates jobs here.
    "It is one more step in the fight to lessen our dependence on foreign oil," said Stankiewicz.
     The EPA is considering Growth Energy's increased ethanol request.

Kansas Legislature agrees
     Separately, the Kansas Legislature passed a similar resolution earlier this month urging the EPA to consider a maximum for ethanol in regular gasoline up to 20 percent. And even though Kansas doesn't have a mandate to make a percentage of the fuel supply be ethanol, this joint resolution passed 39-0 in the Senate and 110-12 in the House. The resolution was introduced by more than 30 state senators, including Sen. Marci Francisco (D-Lawrence.)
      Stankiewicz, whose ethanol processors association drafted the resolution in the resolution, says that while this resolution is not binding, it tells the EPA where Kansans stand on increasing ethanol.
     "It sends a message to EPA that the Kansas Legislature believes in sound science," Stankiewicz said. "The resolution is asking the EPA to be open about new science and new technology."

Corn uses after ethanol

Steve Gardner of East Kansas Agri-Energy, an ethanol processor, explains how corn
is used for more than ethanol at the processing plant. This helps to reduce waste.

Engine consequences
     But more ethanol in regular fuel could have major implications ranging from land and water use to engine performance.
     Bob Rodriguez, manager of special testing programs for the National Institute for Automotive Excellence of Leesburg, Va., an organization that certifies automotive service technicians brings up many questions about the effect of more ethanol.
     Rodriguez brings up ethanol's role as an octane enhancer and how a water-absorbent ethanol may separate from gasoline if too much water is introduced into the mix, sink to the bottom of a fuel tank and let lowered-octane gasoline pass through, creating possible engine problems.
     Also Rodriguez asks if boats with fiberglass gas tanks, smaller engines like chainsaws, and older vehicles are being taken into consideration.
     "What is the age of the vehicle?" Rodriguez said, "Older vehicles could have seals, gaskets and elastomers which cannot tolerate alcohol (ethanol.)"
    "Think of the potential for fuel leaks, and worse."
     Chris Depcik, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Kansas, says that he thinks it's always an issue to introduce a different fuel from what the engine was designed to produce.
     Depcik is setting up a laboratory to study the effects on an engine conversion to accept an 85 percent ethanol fuel mix.
    "We are also studying biodiesel, green diesel and green jet fuel," Depcik said.
     Sue Schulte of the Garnett-based Kansas Corn Growers Association says that ethanol blends easily up to 15 to 20 percent in most vehicles.
     "People were excited about domestic fuel production in general when fuel prices were high," Schulte said. "What I keep reminding people is that oil prices will come up."
      In my personal opinion," Rodriguez said, "Without further study of the technical issues alone, universally blending over 10% alcohol in gasoline is a risky move.

Ethanol Plants in Kansas

View Kansas Ethanol Plants in a larger map
East Kansas Agri-Energy, of Garnett, is the closest ethanol plant to Lawrence, and the only ethanol plant in eastern Kansas. Source: Renewable Fuels Association

Land use in question
     Federally subsidized corn-based ethanol could be in a potential battle with the food supply and land and water usage, according to Carey Maynard-Moody, vice chair of the recently completed Lawrence Climate Protection Task Force. She is also chair of the Wakarusa Group, a Lawrence-based environmental group.
     The Climate Protection Task Force did not recommend increased ethanol usage in its study of public transportation for the city; rather it focused on Intelligent Transportation Systems like smarter traffic signals. Also, the group considered buses that used Consolidated Natural Gas, but found it to be unfeasible for now.
      "Alternative fuels are best when they're not from a food source," Maynard-Moody said. "To take land that was used to growth fuel is questionable . . .Corn should not be grown in dry lands."
     Billings agrees.
      "To the extent that the switch influences land use, we need to account for that influence in greenhouse gas in the atmosphere," Billings said.
     Stankiewicz said that ethanol processors that have built in Kansas have considered ecological effects. Water rights acquired for ethanol processing plants are using 40 percent less water than the farmers that used the lands before.
    "In Kansas, under our laws, we're not using more than we previously used," said Stankiewicz. "We're using less land than we used a number of years ago. We've improved bushels per acre with genetics and technology."

New citizenship milestone in student's political science career

By Jesus Rangel-Montelongo on April 9, 2009 11:41 PM | No Comments

Elsa Fraire, right, shows her citizenship certificate and Elsa's daughter Monica Ontiveros holds an American flag at Elsa's naturalization ceremony on March 27 in Topeka. Photo courtesy of Elsa Fraire.

LAWRENCE, Kan.--Elsa Fraire's face beamed with jubilation as she picked out her mementos from her purse from an eventful Friday: a small American flag, a folded sheet of paper listing the events of the morning. She never imagined that the few words spoken in Topeka by U.S. District Judge Gary Sebelius, husband of Kansas governor and Health and Human Services secretary nominee Kathleen Sebelius, would mean so much.

She is now a United States Citizen.

"All of the sudden you're a citizen," she said. "It was a simple motion."

The move to become a citizen for 29-year-old Fraire, Liberal junior, comes more than twenty years' after the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, signed into law by then President Ronald Reagan. While she and her family, immigrants from Mexico, emerged from that process as legal residents, Fraire put off the citizenship process as an adult. Her parents had also done years before.

Immigration Debate

Elsa Fraire talks about a discussion with a fellow student
in a political science class on the subject of immigration.

"I never really felt like I needed to become a citizen before," Fraire said. "I was not really aware of all the benefits I would receive or what type of impact I could do by becoming a citizen."

But then the rate to file the citizenship paperwork kept going up. And Fraire, a political science major, found it ironic that what she had promised to do but didn't years before kept her from basic American responsibilities, like voting.

"I know that not all countries grant citizenship to its residents and because of that I'm even more thrilled to be able to have become a citizen of the U.S.," Fraire said.

"I now have all of the privileges and duties as the rest of the citizens of this country."

Better late than never for Fraire.

She graduated from Liberal High School in 1998. She went to local Seward County Community college for a year before dropping out and working at National Beef, a slaughterhouse and the dominant employer in Liberal for eight years.

"I thought community college was easier than going to high school," Fraire said. "When you go to work, you end up getting stuck."

She enrolled at The University of Kansas in the Summer of 2007 as a political science major with a goal to go to law school.

"I'm interested in immigration law," Fraire said.

She has a daughter that lives in with her in Lawrence, 9-year-old Monica, and Larissa, her 13-year-old daughter that lives in Liberal. And even though Fraire had settled into working in the transportation department, a desk job at National Beef, she has always fought for the best education for her daughters. Fraire, who speaks both English and Spanish, remembers having to go to McKinley Elementary School in Liberal to convince school officials that Monica did not need an English as a Second Language course when she was in first grade.

School Days

Elsa fraire talks about her daughter's school
experiences: one in Lawrence, and one in Liberal.

"It wasn't based off of testing," Fraire said. "They made me sign a waiver saying she didn't need it."

According to the Liberal school district website, the school district currently uses Language Assessment Scales, tests that measure English proficiency, to administer this federal program. The State Department of Education is currently developing a new proficiency test, according to the site.

Fraire actually works to teach Monica Spanish, not English. Fraire's parents are adamant about it, because of the opportunities bilingual speakers have.

"She understands everything in Spanish," Fraire said. "She tries to speak it back, but she sometimes gets intimidated because what my parents think is cute, she thinks it's them laughing at her."

Fraire even devotes time on road trips from Lawrence to Liberal to reinforcing language with Monica.

"I don't like that when I try to speak Spanish, I get embarrassed because I think that people are laughing at me," Monica said.

Fraire's interest in politics and law didn't just come from her experience as a mom in the education system. Fraire says she could make a difference in an area like immigration law because says that from her observations that area is rife with people who take advantage of immigrants. Liberal is one of the counties in Western Kansas that is experiencing rapid growth in the Hispanic population because of job opportunities like National Beef. The census estimates that in 2007, 51.8% of Seward County was Hispanic or Latino, compared to 8.8% of Kansas as a whole.

As someone who is willing to stand up and be heard, she worries about Hispanics in Liberal who may not know the ins and outs of the law, and those who do leave.

"A majority of the people that stay don't know," Fraire said. "They are unwilling to fight the status quo."

'rBST-free?' Not quite, says a supporter of milk labeling bill

By Jesus Rangel-Montelongo on March 12, 2009 12:18 PM | No Comments

      Just outside Fort Scott, a small blue building sits in the expansive monotony of rural Kansas with a smiling cow painted on the side. On this day, a 2000-gallon stainless steel holding tank inside is filled to the brim with milk at 38 degrees, milk waiting for a mid-afternoon pick up by a truck that will take it to processing. It was a good milking this morning for Lynda Foster at her family-owned dairy in the room next to the tanker, where cows are milked four on either side.
       The truck that will haul away Foster's milk is one of a few left. That's because Foster uses a synthetic growth hormone, recombinant bovine somatotropin or rBST, to get more milk out of her herd. More and more, trucks and processors and farmers are going rBST-free with their cows. Retail dairy items like milk, cheese and ice cream are often labeled as rBST-free. Because consumers have shown a willingness to pay more out of these products, processors are paying a premium to farmers.
       Foster defends her choice to use the hormone as just another aspect of dairy management, and says that cows don't go to auction as fast as before.
       "We don't use anything that's not legal and doesn't use sound science," Foster said. "We keep cows in our dairy longer."
         Foster doesn't have issue that some dairies have chosen to not use this hormone, approved by the FDA in 1993. She does complain, though, that some milk bottles and other dairy products scream this fact on their packaging with words like 'rBST-free' and 'no growth hormones added.' She says this is misleading.
         Foster wants the Kansas legislature to force dairies that say these types of statements to follow it up with an FDA statement that the two are not significantly different. In the same font. In the same size. On the same side as the package. She took her case to the house agriculture committee on February 26 arguing for House Bill 2295, sponsored by the Kansas Dairy Association. The bill would make Kansas be among the most restrictive states in the country in setting disclosure requirements on milk bottles, because statements like 'no growth hormones added' or 'rBST-free' would be outlawed. The bill is still in the agriculture committee and may be combined with other legislation soon.

At a dairy case near you...

         Kraft Foods has recently rolled out some packaged cheeses with the claim of 'no added growth hormones' on the front of the package. Ben & Jerry's, which submitted written testimony to the committee hearing, currently says on their packaging that 'the family farmers who supply our milk an cream pledge not to treat their cows with rGBH (recombinant growth hormone.)
         "The proposed Kansas rule would apparently deem (our claim) to be misleading because the (FDA) statement it contains is in a smaller font size than the rBGH claim,' Walt Freese, Ben & Jerry's representative, said. "The additional cost to Ben & Jerry's to produce and distribute uniquely labeled products for the Kansas market would be very significant and possibly prohibitive.'
          The FDA has dealt with this issue before. It crafted the disclaimer statement in 1993, when it approved rBST for use. It said that rBST was virtually identical to naturally occurring somatotropin in cows. They issued a warning in September of 2003 to manufacturers that were using 'hormone free' or 'no hormones' that those claims were false.
          While the Kansas Dairy Association and its Topeka lobbyists are supporting this bill, Donn Teske, president of the Kansas Farmer's Union disagrees with the bill.
        "The statement 'rBST free' would make a truthful statement unlawful (with this bill,) said Teske. "If a producer not using rBST and states that his product is 'rBST free' he is making a true statement and should have the right to do so.
       Currently, Foster sells her milk to Dairy Farmers of America, a farmer's cooperative. The cooperative does have a program to pay a farmers premium for milk from cows not treated with rBST, about 40 to 60 cents a hundredweight, or a hundred pounds (There are 8.6 pounds in a gallon of milk.) When milk prices are up, increased production out of cows is enticing to farmers, but the no-rBST premium can supplement today's sagging milk prices. Some processors have demanded quicker action.

Milk prices down

Milk prices have taken a dive in the last few months, making using rBST to
pump out more milk out of cows less appealing. Also, some processors pay
more for milk from cows not injected with rBST.

        "One company decided not to do it overnight," Foster said. "Some farmers had to go off rBST cold turkey."
         Both sides say they are helping the consumer. Supporters say consumers are not being given all of the information about the safety of milk from cows not treated with rBST to make an informed decision and need to know that the FDA says it is safe. Opponents think this is stunting consumer choice because dairies that decide not to use rBST can't make a clear claim saying so.
         The Community Mercantile, 901 Iowa Street, has put 'consumer alerts' on the doors of their milk coolers alerting their customers to contact their legislature to shoot down this bill because this could potentially hurt small farmers who say 'rBST-free.'
        "I think that's what we want, is to know how food is grown and processed," Nancy O'Connor, director of education and outreach at the Community Mercantile, 901 Iowa Street. "I work with consumers every day to read labels and make informed choices."
          Foster points out that there is no test for rBST in milk. It is left up to a farmer not using rBST on their cows to sign affidavits saying so.
       "You can take a sample and verify the milk," Foster said. "No test can prove the difference, until someone wanted that niche market. Milk is milk."
          Even if the legislation passes, the labeling requirements are constrained to bottles and package. Tim Iwig, owner of Iwig Dairy in Topeka does not use rBST, but doesn't say that on the package, either.
          "You can put the claim on a door label, brochure, on a website. You can put it anywhere you want," Iwig said. "All (the legislature) is regulating is the package. Why waste time on it?"
           Foster doesn't let that stop her.
        "Some opponents feel like we can't get anywhere, so why do it?" Foster said. "Even if we are not successful, we have woken a lot of people up. I am not scared of the fact we use rBST."

More on the Web

PDF on House Bill 2295, currently in commitee

FDA News Release on False 'hormone free' claims, Sep. 2003

Kansas autism insurance bill on hold with more questions

By Jesus Rangel-Montelongo on February 26, 2009 8:13 PM | No Comments

TOPEKA, Kan. (Feb. 19, 2009)--Despite impassioned testimony by groups supporting its passage, the bill in the State Senate that would extend insurance coverage to more fully cover autism is on hold.

State Senator Ruth Teichman, Republican from Stafford and chair of the financial institutions and insurance committee, said that the autism insurance bill still has many questions that need to be answered. The recent state budget crisis that has emerged has others in the committee sending the bill to the Kansas Insurance Department for some questioning.

"My fellow committee members do not want to work it," Teichman says.

The bill was heard on January 29. Supporters of the bill hope to expand treatment of the disease by forcing health insurance companies, including the State Employees Health Plan, to cover diagnosis and treatment of autism. Autism is developmental disorder that impairs communication in children, among other things.

Link: PDF file of SB 12

Stuart Jackson, an Overland Park business owner and father of a 5-year-old son diagnosed with autism, testified at the hearing for the bill, and is part of the Kansas Autism task force. He says that money spent by the state on autism treatment now, through their employee health plan, is money saved down the road in social services.

"It does not increase premiums dramatically," Jackson says. "This can help to reduce the burden on the state in the future, because children may become more reliant on the state as they become adults."

The increase in premiums is one of the points of contention between bill supporters and opponents. Jackson says that actuarial studies provided by national advocacy group Autism Speaks estimates the increase in premiums at less than 1 percent. Teichman says that others report to her increases of 2 to 3 percent, maybe as high as 7 percent.

Currently the state employee health plan pegs the bill's cost to its system $4.5 million, but the cost has been analyzed differently by private insurers.

"Any time you add mandated coverage you price people out of the market," says Mary Beth Chambers of Topeka-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, the largest private insurer in Kansas. "Mandated benefits usually help one small group."

Blue Cross and Blue Shield currently pays for some autism treatments such as speech therapy, and Chambers says that in large insurance groups of 50 or more employees an autism diagnosis does not automatically mean a decline for coverage, something that the bill wants to guarantee does not happen.

The Kansas Chamber of Commerce, representing member businesses, has also come out against the bill, also saying that increases in premiums increase the number of uninsured.

"Every mandate has a one percent impact on the uninsured," says Rachelle Colombo, Senior Director of Legislative affairs for the Chamber of Commerce. "We support insurers having the choice of what benefits they offer in their plans."

Autism insurance legislation already passed:

2007	Texas, South Carolina, Indiana
2008	Arizona, Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Florida

Autism insurance legislation introduced this year:

Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin

Sources: Autism Speaks; Indiana Autism Coalition, Inc.

Teichman said in a press release Wednesday that she has sent a list of questions for the Kansas Insurance Department to research before the committee can proceed with the bill.

"How do we separate what is the responsibility of the insurers and that of the educators?" Teichman asks, "Should everything be born on the backs of those with insurance coverage or should public education or a state agency take on a greater share of the responsibility?"

The Kansas Insurance Department does not yet have answers to these questions but should soon, says Bob Hanson, public information officer at the department.

Jackson disagrees with Teichman's questioning on education's role, and says that it is a tactic brought up by bill opponents because autism may require additional special education, something not addressed in this bill.

"This is not a public education issue. It has a medical diagnosis," Jackson said. "It was a doctor who diagnosed my son with autism, not a teacher. School principals do not diagnose nor do they prescribe treatments for autism."