title: Haskalah

text: As long as the Jews lived in segregated communities, and as long as all social interaction with their gentile neighbors was limited, the rabbi was the most influential member of the Jewish community. In addition to being a religious scholar and "clergy", a rabbi also acted as a civil judge in all cases in which both parties were Jews. Rabbis sometimes had other important administrative powers, together with the community elders. The rabbinate was the highest aim of many Jewish boys, and the study of the Talmud was the means of obtaining that coveted position, or one of many other important communal distinctions. Haskalah followers advocated "coming out of the ghetto", not just physically but also mentally and spiritually, in order to assimilate among gentile nations.


title: Haskalah

text: The example of Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86), a Prussian Jew, served to lead this movement, which was also shaped by Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn (1754–1835) and Joseph Perl (1773–1839). Mendelssohn's extraordinary success as a popular philosopher and man of letters revealed hitherto unsuspected possibilities of integration and acceptance of Jews among non-Jews. Mendelssohn also provided methods for Jews to enter the general society of Germany. A good knowledge of the German language was necessary to secure entrance into cultured German circles, and an excellent means of acquiring it was provided by Mendelssohn in his German translation of the Torah. This work became a bridge over which ambitious young Jews could pass to the great world of secular knowledge. The "Biur", or grammatical commentary, prepared under Mendelssohn's supervision, was designed to counteract the influence of traditional rabbinical methods of exegesis. Together with the translation, it became, as it were, the primer of Haskalah.


title: Haskalah

text: Language played a key role in the haskalah movement, as Mendelssohn and others called for a revival of Hebrew and a reduction in the use of Yiddish. The result was an outpouring of new, secular literature, as well as critical studies of religious texts. Julius Fürst along with other German-Jewish scholars compiled Hebrew and Aramaic dictionaries and grammars. Jews also began to study and communicate in the languages of the countries in which they settled, providing another gateway for integration.


title: Haskalah

text: Berlin was the city of origin for the movement. The capital city of Prussia and, later, the German Empire, Berlin became known as a secular, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic center, a fertile environment for conversations and radical movements. This move by the Maskilim away from religious study, into much more critical and worldly studies was made possible by this German city of modern and progressive thought. It was a city in which the rising middle class Jews and intellectual elites not only lived among, but were exposed to previous age of enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. The movement is often referred to as the "Berlin Haskalah". Reference to Berlin in relation to the Haskalah movement is necessary because it provides context for this episode of Jewish history. Subsequently, having left Germany and spreading across Eastern Europe, the "Berlin Haskalah" influenced multiple Jewish communities who were interested in non-religious scholarly texts and insight to worlds beyond their Jewish enclaves.


title: Haskalah

text: Haskalah did not stay restricted to Germany, however, and the movement quickly spread throughout Europe. Poland–Lithuania was the heartland of Rabbinic Judaism, with its two streams of Misnagdic Talmudism centred in Lithuania and other regions, and Hasidic mysticism popular in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and Russia. In the 19th century, Haskalah sought dissemination and transformation of traditional education and inward pious life in Eastern Europe. It adapted its message to these different environments, working with the Russian government of the Pale of Settlement to influence secular educational methods, while its writers satirised Hasidic mysticism, in favour of solely Rationalist interpretation of Judaism. Isaac Baer Levinsohn (1788–1860) became known as the "Russian Mendelssohn". Joseph Perl's (1773–1839) satire of the Hasidic movement, "Revealer of Secrets" (Megalleh Temirim), is said to be the first modern novel in Hebrew. It was published in Vienna in 1819 under the pseudonym "Obadiah ben Pethahiah". The Haskalah's message of integration into non-Jewish society was subsequently counteracted by alternative secular Jewish political movements advocating Folkish, Socialist or Nationalist secular Jewish identities in Eastern Europe. While Haskalah advocated Hebrew and sought to remove Yiddish, these subsequent developments advocated Yiddish Renaissance among Maskilim. Writers of Yiddish literature variously satirised or sentimentalised Hasidic mysticism.


title: Haskalah

text: The Haskalah also resulted in the creation of a secular Jewish culture, with an emphasis on Jewish history and Jewish identity, rather than on religion. This, in turn, resulted in the political engagement of Jews in a variety of competing ways within the countries where they lived on issues that included


title: Haskalah

text: One commentator describes these effects as "The emancipation of the Jews brought forth two opposed movements: the cultural assimilation, begun by Moses Mendelssohn, and Zionism, founded by Theodor Herzl in 1896."


title: Haskalah

text: One facet of the Haskalah was a widespread cultural adaptation, as those Jews who participated in the enlightenment began, in varying degrees, to participate in the cultural practices of the surrounding gentile population. Connected with this was the birth of the Reform movement, whose founders (such as Israel Jacobson and Leopold Zunz) rejected the continuing observance of those aspects of Jewish law which they classified as ritual—as opposed to moral or ethical. Even within orthodoxy, the Haskalah was felt through the appearance, in response, of the Mussar Movement in Lithuania, and "Torah im Derech Eretz" in Germany. "Enlightened" Jews sided with gentile governments, in plans to increase secular education and assimilation among the Jewish masses, which brought them into acute conflict with the orthodox, who believed this threatened the traditional Jewish lifestyle – which had up until that point been maintained through segregation from their gentile neighbors – and Jewish identity itself.


title: Haskalah

text: The spread of Haskalah affected Judaism, as a religion, because of the degree to which different sects desired to be integrated, and in turn, integrate their religious traditions. The effects of the Enlightenment were already present in Jewish religious music, and in opinion on the tension between traditionalist and modernist tendencies. Groups of Reform Jews, including the Society of the Friends of Reform and the Association for the Reform of Judaism were formed, because such groups wanted, and actively advocated for, a change in Jewish tradition, in particular, regarding rituals like circumcision. Another non-Orthodox group was the Conservative Jews, who emphasized the importance of traditions but viewed with a historical perspective. The Orthodox Jews were actively against these reformers because they viewed changing Jewish tradition as an insult to God and believed that fulfillment in life could be found in serving God and keeping his commandments. The effect of Haskalah was that it gave a voice to plurality of views, while the orthodoxy preserved the tradition, even to the point of insisting on dividing between sects.


title: Haskalah

text: Another important facet of the Haskalah was its interests to non-Jewish religions. Moses Mendelssohn criticized some aspects of Christianity, but depicted Jesus as a Torah-observant rabbi, who was loyal to traditional Judaism. Mendelssohn explicitly linked positive Jewish views of Jesus with the issues of Emancipation and Jewish-Christian reconciliation. Similar revisionist views were expressed by Rabbi Isaac Ber Levinsohn and other traditional representatives of the Haskalah movement.


title: Xmas

text: Xmas (also X-mas) is a common abbreviation of the word "Christmas". It is sometimes pronounced , but "Xmas", and variants such as "Xtemass", originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation . The "X" comes from the Greek letter "Chi", which is the first letter of the Greek word (), which became "Christ" in English.


title: Xmas

text: There is a common misconception that the word "Xmas" stems from a secularizing tendency to de-emphasize the religious tradition from Christmas, by "taking the Christ out of Christmas"; nevertheless, this usage dates back to the 16th century, with the "X" deriving from the New-Testament Greek spelling of "christos" (meaning roughly "[the] anointed [one]"), and corresponds to Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Church of England, and Episcopalian liturgical use of various forms of chi-rho monogram.


title: Xmas

text: "Xmas" is deprecated by some modern style guides, including those at the "New York Times","The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage" "The Times", "The Guardian", and the BBC. Millicent Fenwick, in the 1948 "Vogue's Book of Etiquette", states that "'Xmas' should never be used" in greeting cards. "The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage" states that the spelling should be considered informal and restricted to contexts where concision is valued, such as headlines and greeting cards. "The Christian Writer's Manual of Style", while acknowledging the ancient and respectful use of "Xmas" in the past, states that the spelling should never be used in formal writing.


title: Xmas

text: Early use of "Xmas" includes Bernard Ward's "History of St. Edmund's college, Old Hall" (originally published circa 1755). An earlier version, "X'temmas", dates to 1551. Around 1100 the term was written as in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle". "Xmas" is found in a letter from George Woodward in 1753. Lord Byron used the term in 1811, as did Samuel Coleridge (1801) and Lewis Carroll (1864). In the United States, the fifth American edition of William Perry's "Royal Standard English Dictionary", published in Boston in 1800, included in its list of "Explanations of Common Abbreviations, or Contraction of Words" the entry: "Xmas. Christmas." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. used the term in a letter dated 1923.


title: Xmas

text: Since at least the late 19th century, "Xmas" has been in use in various other English-language nations. Quotations with the word can be found in texts first written in Canada, and the word has been used in Australia, and in the Caribbean. "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage" stated that modern use of the term is largely limited to advertisements, headlines and banners, where its conciseness is valued. The association with commerce "has done nothing for its reputation", according to the dictionary.


title: Xmas

text: In the United Kingdom, the former Church of England Bishop of Blackburn, Alan Chesters, recommended to his clergy that they avoid the spelling.


title: Xmas

text: In the United States, in 1977 New Hampshire Governor Meldrim Thomson sent out a press release saying that he wanted journalists to keep the "Christ" in Christmas, and not call it Xmas—which he called a "pagan" spelling of 'Christmas'.


title: Xmas

text: The abbreviation of Christmas as "Xmas" is a source of disagreement among Christians who observe the holiday.


title: Xmas

text: The December 1957 "News and Views" published by the Church League of America, a conservative organization co-founded in 1937 by George Washington Robnett, attacked the use of Xmas in an article titled "X=The Unknown Quantity". The claims were picked up later by Gerald L. K. Smith, who in December 1966 claimed that Xmas was a "blasphemous omission of the name of Christ" and that "'X' is referred to as being symbolical of the unknown quantity". Smith further argued that the Jewish people had introduced Santa Claus to suppress New Testament accounts of Jesus, and that the United Nations, at the behest of "world Jewry", had "outlawed the name of Christ". There is, however, a well documented history of use of "Χ" (actually the Greek letter 'chi') as an abbreviation for "Christ" and possibly also a symbol of the cross. The abbreviation appears on many Orthodox Christian religious icons.


title: Xmas

text: Dennis Bratcher, writing for Christian website "The Voice", states "there are always those who loudly decry the use of the abbreviation 'Xmas' as some kind of blasphemy against Christ and Christianity". Among them are evangelist Franklin Graham and former CNN contributor Roland S. Martin. Graham stated in an interview: "for us as Christians, this is one of the most holy of the holidays, the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. And for people to take Christ out of Christmas. They're happy to say merry Xmas. Let's just take Jesus out. And really, I think, a war against the name of Jesus Christ." Roland Martin likewise relates the use of "Xmas" to his growing concerns of increasing commercialization and secularization of one of Christianity's highest holy days. Bratcher posits that those who dislike abbreviating the word are unfamiliar with a long history of Christians using X in place of "Christ" for various purposes.


title: Xmas

text: The word "Christ" and its compounds, including "Christmas", have been abbreviated in English for at least the past 1,000 years, long before the modern "Xmas" was commonly used. "Christ" was often written as "Xρ" or "Xt"; there are references in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" as far back as 1021. This 'X' and 'P' arose as the uppercase forms of the Greek letters (Ch) and (R) used in ancient abbreviations for (Greek for "Christ"). The Chi-Rho, an amalgamation of the two Greek letters rendered as '☧' (Unicode character ) is a symbol often used to represent Christ in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian Churches.


title: Xmas

text: The "Oxford English Dictionary" ("OED") and the "OED Supplement" have cited usages of "X-" or "Xp-" for "Christ-" as early as 1485. The terms "Xtian" and less commonly "Xpian" have also been used for "Christian". The "OED" further cites usage of "Xtianity" for "Christianity" from 1634. According to "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage", most of the evidence for these words comes from "educated Englishmen who knew their Greek".


title: Xmas

text: In ancient Christian art, and are abbreviations for Christ's name. In many manuscripts of the "New Testament" and icons, 'Χ' is an abbreviation for , as is XC (the first and last letters in Greek, using the lunate sigma); compare IC for Jesus in Greek.


title: Xmas

text: Other proper names containing the name "Christ" besides those mentioned above are sometimes abbreviated similarly, either as "X" or "Xt", both of which have been used historically, e.g., "Xtopher" or "Xopher" for "Christopher", or "Xtina" or "Xina" for the name "Christina".


title: Xmas

text: In the 17th and 18th centuries, "Xene" and "Exene" were common spellings for the given name Christine. The American singer Christina Aguilera has sometimes gone by the name "Xtina". Similarly, Exene Cervenka has been a noted American singer-songwriter since 1977.


title: Xmas

text: This usage of "X" to spell the syllable "kris" (rather than the sounds "ks") has extended to "xtal" for "crystal", and on florists' signs to "xant" for "chrysanthemum", even though these words are not etymologically related to "Christ": "crystal" comes from a Greek word meaning "ice" (and not even using the letter ), and "chrysanthemum" comes from Greek words meaning "golden flower", while "Christ" comes from a Greek word meaning "anointed".


title: Museum ship

text: A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small number of museum ships that are still operational and thus capable of regular movement.


title: Museum ship

text: Several hundred museum ships are kept around the world, with around 175 of them organised in the Historic Naval Ships Association though many are not naval museum ships, from general merchant ships to tugs and lightships. Many, if not most, museum ships are also associated with a maritime museum.


title: Museum ship

text: Relatively few ships are preserved beyond their useful life, due to the high cost of maintaining them against the ravages of the elements. Most are broken up and sold for scrap, while a relative handful are sunk as naval target practice, scuttled to create artificial reefs, and so on. Some survive because of historical significance, but more often due to luck and circumstance. Since an old ship tied up at dockside, without attention, still decays and eventually sinks, the practice of recent years has been to form some sort of preservation society, solicit donations from governments or private individuals, organize volunteer labor from the enthusiasts, and open the restored ship to visitors, usually for a fee.


title: Museum ship

text: The restoration and maintenance of museum ships presents problems for historians who are asked for advice, and the results periodically generate some controversy. For instance, the rigging of sailing ships has almost never survived, and so the rigging plan must be reconstructed from various sources. Studying the ships also allows historians to analyze how life on and operation of the ships took place. Numerous scientific papers have been written on ship restoration and maintenance, and international conferences are held discussing the latest developments. Some years ago, the Barcelona Charter was signed by a variety of international owner organizations of traditional vessels, and provides certain accepted minimum criteria for the restoration and operation of traditional watercraft still in operation.


title: Museum ship

text: Another consideration is the distinction between a "real" museum ship, and a ship replica. As repairs accumulate over time, less and less of the ship is of the original materials, and the lack of old parts (or even "appropriate" work tools) may lead to the use of modern "short-cuts" (such as welding a metal plate instead of riveting it, as would be the case during the ships' historical period). Visitors without historical background are also often unable to distinguish between a historical museum ship and a (more-or-less historically relevant) ship replica, which may serve solely as a tourist attraction.


title: Museum ship

text: Typically the visitor enters via gangplank, wanders around on the deck, then goes below, usually using the original stairways, giving a sense of how the crew got around. The interior features restored but inactivated equipment, enhanced with mementos including old photographs, explanatory displays, pages from the ship's logs, menus, and the like. Some add recorded sound effects, audio tours or video displays to enhance the experience. When the USN turns over one of their ships to a museum, a contract must be signed, stating that the Navy bears no responsibility for the costs of restoration, preservation and maintenance. Also, major pieces of equipment such as engines and generators must be permanently disabled. If the ship requires services such as electricity and water, they must come through shore connections.


title: Museum ship

text: In some cases, the ships radio room has been brought back into use, with volunteers operating amateur radio equipment. Often, the callsign assigned is a variation on the original identification of the ship. For example, the submarine , which had the call NBQV, is now on the air as NB9QV. The World War II submarine , berthed at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, had the wartime call NJVT and is now on the air as NJ6VT. In other cases, such as , a distinctive call (in this case KH6BB) is used. This radio work not only helps restore part of the vessel, but also provides worldwide publicity for the museum ship.


title: Museum ship

text: A number of the larger museum ships have begun to offer hosting for weddings, meetings, other events, and sleepovers, and on a few ships still seaworthy, cruises. In the United States, this includes s annual "turnaround", when the old ship is towed out into the harbor and brought back in facing the other way, so as to weather evenly. A place on the deck is by invitation or lottery only, and highly prized.


title: Museum ship

text: Many consider the tourism appeal of an interesting old vessel on the city waterfront strong enough that any port city should showcase one or more museum ships. This may even include building a replica ship at great expense.


title: David Anthony Higgins

text: David Anthony Higgins (born December 9, 1961) is an American actor. He is known for his television roles as Craig Feldspar on "Malcolm in the Middle", Joe on "Ellen", and Reginald Bitters on "Big Time Rush". He also had a recurring role as Harry on the television series "Mike & Molly".


title: David Anthony Higgins

text: Higgins was born on December 9, 1961, in Des Moines, Iowa, one of five children (including brothers Steve and Alan) of Marian Higgins (née Coppola; 1932–2011) and Harold Higgins, the latter of whom was a janitor at West Des Moines schools. After receiving encouragement from a fourth-grade teacher, he won a scholarship to the Des Moines Playhouse and performed in several summer operettas. He was raised in Des Moines and graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in 1980. He attended the University of Iowa, where he studied liberal arts until he realized he wanted to pursue a career in entertainment.


title: David Anthony Higgins

text: Higgins, along with his brother Steve and Dave Gruber Allen, performed in a comedy troupe, Don't Quit Your Day Job, and performed at notable places, including Des Moines' Hotel Kirkwood. Eventually they toured in other states, including California, and were so well received that they were offered their own show, "The Higgins Boys and Gruber", on HBO's The Comedy Channel in 1989. After the show ended in 1991, they each pursued separate careers in comedy.


title: David Anthony Higgins

text: Higgins received his big break when cast as outspoken barista Joe in the sitcom "Ellen" in 1994. In 1997, he appeared in the Dave Foley film "The Wrong Guy", which he also co-wrote with Foley and "The Simpsons" writer Jay Kogen.


title: David Anthony Higgins

text: Higgins is perhaps most well recognized for his roles as Craig Feldspar in "Malcolm in the Middle" and Mr. Bitters in "Big Time Rush". He also guest starred on Nickelodeon's "True Jackson, VP" as Dave. He later appeared in three episodes of "" as minor character Stan. He began a recurring role as Harry in season two of the CBS series "Mike & Molly", and was eventually upgraded to a series regular in season three.


title: David Anthony Higgins

text: In 2000, he married his wife Julia, and they have two children. They live in Studio City, California. In 2004, Higgins was featured in a Hollywood edition of the Discovery Channel series "Body Challenge", where he worked with a personal trainer. He is a fan of Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: A flexible-fuel vehicle (FFV) or dual-fuel vehicle (colloquially called a flex-fuel vehicle) is an alternative fuel vehicle with an internal combustion engine designed to run on more than one fuel, usually gasoline blended with either ethanol or methanol fuel, and both fuels are stored in the same common tank. Modern flex-fuel engines are capable of burning any proportion of the resulting blend in the combustion chamber as fuel injection and spark timing are adjusted automatically according to the actual blend detected by a fuel composition sensor. Flex-fuel vehicles are distinguished from bi-fuel vehicles, where two fuels are stored in separate tanks and the engine runs on one fuel at a time, for example, compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), or hydrogen.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: The most common commercially available FFV in the world market is the ethanol flexible-fuel vehicle, with about 60 million automobiles, motorcycles and light duty trucks manufactured and sold worldwide by March 2018, and concentrated in four markets, Brazil (30.5 million light-duty vehicles and over 6 million motorcycles), the United States (21 million by the end of 2017), Canada (1.6 million by 2014), and Europe, led by Sweden (243,100). In addition to flex-fuel vehicles running with ethanol, in Europe and the US, mainly in California, there have been successful test programs with methanol flex-fuel vehicles, known as M85 flex-fuel vehicles. There have been also successful tests using P-series fuels with E85 flex fuel vehicles, but as of June 2008, this fuel is not yet available to the general public. These successful tests with P-series fuels were conducted on Ford Taurus and Dodge Caravan flexible-fuel vehicles.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Though technology exists to allow ethanol FFVs to run on any mixture of gasoline and ethanol, from pure gasoline up to 100% ethanol (E100), North American and European flex-fuel vehicles are optimized to run on E85, a blend of 85% anhydrous ethanol fuel with 15% gasoline. This upper limit in the ethanol content is set to reduce ethanol emissions at low temperatures and to avoid cold starting problems during cold weather, at temperatures lower than . The alcohol content is reduced during the winter in regions where temperatures fall below to a winter blend of E70 in the U.S. or to E75 in Sweden from November until March. Brazilian flex fuel vehicles are optimized to run on any mix of E20-E25 gasoline and up to 100% hydrous ethanol fuel (E100). The Brazilian flex vehicles are built-in with a small gasoline reservoir for cold starting the engine when temperatures drop below . An improved flex motor generation was launched in 2009 which eliminated the need for the secondary gas tank.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: As ethanol FFVs became commercially available during the late 1990s, the common use of the term "flexible-fuel vehicle" became synonymous with ethanol FFVs. In the United States flex-fuel vehicles are also known as "E85 vehicles". In Brazil, the FFVs are popularly known as "total flex" or simply "flex" cars. In Europe, FFVs are also known as "flexifuel" vehicles. Automakers, particularly in Brazil and the European market, use badging in their FFV models with the some variant of the word "flex", such as Volvo "Flexifuel", or Volkswagen "Total Flex", or Chevrolet "FlexPower" or Renault "Hi-Flex", and Ford sells its Focus model in Europe as "Flexifuel" and as "Flex" in Brazil. In the US, only since 2008 FFV models feature a yellow gas cap with the label "E85/Gasoline" written on the top of the cap to differentiate E85s from gasoline only models.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Flexible-fuel vehicles (FFVs) are based on dual-fuel systems that supply both fuels into the combustion chamber at the same time in various calibrated proportions. The most common fuels used by FFVs today are unleaded gasoline and ethanol fuel. Ethanol FFVs can run on pure gasoline, pure ethanol (E100) or any combination of both. Methanol has also been blended with gasoline in flex-fuel vehicles known as M85 FFVs, but their use has been limited mainly to demonstration projects and small government fleets, particularly in California.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: The Ford Model T, produced from 1908 through 1927, was fitted with a carburetor with adjustable jetting, allowing use of ethanol, gasoline or kerosene (each by itself), or a combination of the first two mentioned fuels. Other car manufactures also provided engines for ethanol fuel use. Henry Ford continued to advocate for ethanol as fuel even during Prohibition. However, cheaper oil caused gasoline to prevail, until the 1973 oil crisis resulted in gasoline shortages and awareness on the dangers of oil dependence. This crisis opened a new opportunity for ethanol and other alternative fuels, such as methanol, gaseous fuels such as CNG and LPG, and also hydrogen. Ethanol, methanol and natural gas were the three alternative fuels that received more attention for research and development, and government support.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Since 1975, and as a response to the shock caused by the first oil crisis, the Brazilian government implemented the National Alcohol Program -Pró-Álcool- (), a nationwide program financed by the government to phase out automotive fuels derived from fossil fuels in favor of ethanol made from sugar cane. It began with a low blend of anhydrous alcohol with regular gasoline in 1976, and since July 2007 the mandatory blend is 25% of alcohol or gasohol E25. In 1979, and as a response to the second oil crisis, the first vehicle capable of running with pure hydrous ethanol (E100) was launched to the market, the Fiat 147, after testing with several prototypes developed by Fiat, Volkswagen, GM and Ford. The Brazilian government provided three important initial drivers for the ethanol industry: guaranteed purchases by the state-owned oil company Petrobras, low-interest loans for agro-industrial ethanol firms, and fixed gasoline and ethanol prices. After reaching more than 4 million cars and light trucks running on pure ethanol by the late 1980s, the use of E100-only vehicles sharply declined after increases in sugar prices produced shortages of ethanol fuel.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: After extensive research that began in the 90s, a second push took place in March 2003, when the Brazilian subsidiary of Volkswagen launched to the market the first full flexible-fuel car, the Gol 1.6 Total Flex. Several months later was followed by other Brazilian automakers, and by 2010 General Motors, Fiat, Ford, Peugeot, Renault, Volkswagen, Honda, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Citroën, Nissan and Kia Motors were producing popular models of flex cars and light trucks. The adoption of ethanol flex fuel vehicles was so successful, that production of flex cars went from almost 40 thousand in 2003 to 1.7 million in 2007. This rapid adoption of the flex technology was facilitated by the fuel distribution infrastructure already in place, as around 27,000 filling stations countrywide were available by 1997 with at least one ethanol pump, a heritage of the "Pró-Álcool" program.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: In the United States, initial support to develop alternative fuels by the government was also a response to the first oil crisis, and some time later, as a goal to improve air quality. Also, liquid fuels were preferred over gaseous fuels not only because they have a better volumetric energy density but also because they were the most compatible fuels with existing distribution systems and engines, thus avoiding a big departure from the existing technologies and taking advantage of the vehicle and the refueling infrastructure. California led the search of sustainable alternatives with interest focused in methanol. Ford Motor Company and other automakers responded to California's request for vehicles that run on methanol. In 1981, Ford delivered 40 dedicated methanol fuel (M100) Escorts to Los Angeles County, but only four refueling stations were installed. The biggest challenge in the development of alcohol vehicle technology was getting all of the fuel system materials compatible with the higher chemical reactivity of the fuel. Methanol was even more of a challenge than ethanol but much of the early experience gained with neat ethanol vehicle production in Brazil was transferable to methanol. The success of this small experimental fleet of M100s led California to request more of these vehicles, mainly for government fleets. In 1983, Ford built 582 M100 vehicles; 501 went to California, and the remaining to New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom, and Canada.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: As an answer to the lack of refueling infrastructure, Ford began development of a flexible-fuel vehicle in 1982, and between 1985 and 1992, 705 experimental FFVs were built and delivered to California and Canada, including the 1.6L Ford Escort, the 3.0L Taurus, and the 5.0L LTD Crown Victoria. These vehicles could operate on either gasoline or methanol with only one fuel system. Legislation was passed to encourage the US auto industry to begin production, which started in 1993 for the M85 FFVs at Ford. In 1996, a new FFV Ford Taurus was developed, with models fully capable of running on either methanol or ethanol blended with gasoline. This ethanol version of the Taurus became the first commercial production of an E85 FFV. The momentum of the FFV production programs at the American car companies continued, although by the end of the 1990s, the emphasis shifted to the FFV E85 version, as it is today. Ethanol was preferred over methanol because there is a large support from the farming community, and thanks to the government's incentive programs and corn-based ethanol subsidies available at the time. Sweden also tested both the M85 and the E85 flexifuel vehicles, but due to agriculture policy, in the end emphasis was given to the ethanol flexifuel vehicles. Support for ethanol also comes from the fact that it is a biomass fuel, which addresses climate change concerns and greenhouse gas emissions, though nowadays these benefits are questioned and depend on the feedstock used for ethanol production and their indirect land use change impacts.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: The demand for ethanol fuel produced from field corn in the United States was stimulated by the discovery in the late 90s that methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), an oxygenate additive in gasoline, was contaminating groundwater. Due to the risks of widespread and costly litigation, and because MTBE use in gasoline was banned in almost 20 states by 2006, the substitution of MTBE opened a new market for ethanol fuel. This demand shift for ethanol as an oxygenate additive took place at a time when oil prices were already significantly rising. By 2006, about 50 percent of the gasoline used in the U.S. contained ethanol at different proportions, and ethanol production grew so fast that the US became the world's top ethanol producer, overtaking Brazil in 2005. This shift also contributed to a sharp increase in the production and sale of E85 flex vehicles since 2002.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Flexible-fuel technology started being developed by Brazilian engineers near the end of the 1990s. The Brazilian flexible fuel car is built with an ethanol-ready engine and one fuel tank for both fuels. The small gasoline reservoir for starting the engine in cold weather, used in earlier neat ethanol vehicles, was kept to avoid start up problems in the central and southern regions, where winter temperatures normally drop below . An improved flex motor generation was launched in 2009 and allowed to eliminate the need for this secondary gas reservoir tank. Another improvement was the reduction of fuel consumption and tailpipe emissions, between 10% to 15% as compared to flex motors sold in 2008. In March 2009 Volkswagen do Brasil launched the Polo E-Flex, the first flex fuel model without an auxiliary tank for cold start.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: A key innovation in the Brazilian flex technology was avoiding the need for an additional dedicated sensor to monitor the ethanol-gasoline mix, which made the first American M85 flex fuel vehicles too expensive.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Brazilian flex cars are capable of running on just hydrated ethanol (E100), or just on a blend of gasoline with 25 to 27% anhydrous ethanol (the mandatory blend), or on any arbitrary combination of both fuels.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: The flexibility of Brazilian FFVs empowers the consumers to choose the fuel depending on current market prices. As ethanol fuel economy is lower than gasoline because of ethanol's energy content is close to 34% less per unit volume than gasoline, flex cars running on ethanol get a lower mileage than when running on pure gasoline. However, this effect is partially offset by the usually lower price per liter of ethanol fuel. As a rule of thumb, Brazilian consumers are frequently advised by the media to use more alcohol than gasoline in their mix only when ethanol prices are 30% lower or more than gasoline, as ethanol price fluctuates heavily depending on the result of seasonal sugar cane harvests.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: In March 2003 Volkswagen do Brasil launched in the market the Gol 1.6 Total Flex, the first commercial flexible fuel vehicle capable of running on any blend of gasoline and ethanol. GM do Brasil followed three months later with the Chevrolet Corsa 1.8 Flexpower, using an engine developed by a joint-venture with Fiat called PowerTrain. Passenger flex-fuel vehicles became a commercial success in the country, and , a total of 15 car manufacturers produce flex-fuel engines for the Brazilian market, dominating all light vehicle segments except sports cars, off-road vehicles and minivans.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: The production of flex-fuel cars and light commercial vehicles since 2003 reached the milestone of 10 million vehicles in March 2010. At the end of 2012 registrations of flex-fuel cars and light trucks represented 87% of all passenger and light duty vehicles sold in the country in 2012, and climbed to a 94% market share of all new passenger vehicles sales in 2013. Production passed the 20 million-unit mark in June 2013.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: By the end of 2014, flex-fuel cars represented 54% of the Brazilian registered stock of light-duty vehicles, while gasoline only vehicles represented 34.3%. , flex-fuel light-duty vehicle sales totaled 25.5 million units. The market share of flex vehicles reached 88.6% of all light-duty registrations in 2017. , fifteen years after the launch of the first flex fuel car, there were 30.5 million flex cars and light trucks registered in the country, and 6 million flex motorcycles.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: The rapid success of flex vehicles was made possible by the existence of 33,000 filling stations with at least one ethanol pump available by 2006, a heritage of the early "Pró-Álcool" ethanol program. These facts, together with the mandatory use of E25 blend of gasoline throughout the country, allowed Brazil in 2008 to achieve more than 50% of fuel consumption in the gasoline market from sugar cane-based ethanol.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: According to two separate research studies conducted in 2009, at the national level 65% of the flex-fuel registered vehicles regularly used ethanol fuel, and the usage climbed to 93% in São Paulo, the main ethanol producer state where local taxes are lower, and prices at the pump are more competitive than gasoline. However, as a result of higher ethanol prices caused by the Brazilian ethanol industry crisis that began in 2009, combined with government subsidies to keep gasoline price lower than the international market value, by November 2013 only 23% flex-fuel car owners were using ethanol, down from 66% in 2009.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: One of the latest innovation within the Brazilian flexible-fuel technology is the development of flex-fuel motorcycles. The first flex-fuel motorcycle was launched by Honda in March 2009, the CG 150 Titan Mix. In September 2009, Honda launched a second flexible-fuel motorcycle, the on-off-road NXR 150 Bros Mix. By December 2012 the five available models of flexible-fuel motorcycles from Honda and Yamaha reached a cumulative production of 2,291,072 units, representing 31.8% of all motorcycles manufactured in Brazil since 2009, and 48.2% of motorcycle production in 2012. Flexible-fuel motorcycle production passed the 3 million-unit milestone in October 2013. The 4 million mark was reached in March 2015.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Flexible-fuel vehicles were introduced in Sweden as a demonstration test in 1994, when three Ford Taurus were imported to show the technology existed. Because of the existing interest, a project was started in 1995 with 50 Ford Taurus E85 flexifuel in different parts of Sweden: Umeå, Örnsköldsvik, Härnösand, Stockholm, Karlstad, Linköping, and Växjö. From 1997 to 1998 an additional 300 Taurus were imported, and the number of E85 fueling grew to 40. Then in 1998 the city of Stockholm placed an order for 2,000 of FFVs for any car manufacturer willing to produce them. The objective was to jump-start the FFV industry in Sweden. The two domestic car makers Volvo Group and Saab AB refused to participate arguing there were not in place any ethanol filling stations. However, Ford Motor Company took the offer and began importing the flexifuel version of its Focus model, delivering the first cars in 2001, and selling more than 15,000 FFV Focus by 2005, then representing an 80% market share of the flexifuel market.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: In 2005 both Volvo and Saab introduced to the Sweden market their flexifuel models. Saab began selling its 9-5 2.0 Biopower, joined in 2006 by its 9-5 2.3 Biopower. Volvo introduced its S40 and V50 with flexible-fuel engines, joined in late 2006 by the new C30. All Volvo models were initially restricted to the Sweden market, until 2007, when these three models were launched in eight new European markets. In 2007, Saab also started selling a BioPower version of its popular Saab 9-3 line. In 2008 the Saab-derived Cadillac BLS was introduced with E85 compatible engines, and Volvo launched the V70 with a 2.5-litre turbocharged Flexifuel engine.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: All flexible-fuel vehicles in Sweden use an E75 winter blend instead of E85 to avoid engine starting problems during cold weather. This blend was introduced since the winter 2006–07 and E75 is used from November until March. For temperature below E85 flex vehicles require an engine block heater. The use of this device is also recommended for gasoline vehicles when temperatures drop below . Another option when extreme cold weather is expected is to add more pure gasoline in the tank, thus reducing the ethanol content below the E75 winter blend, or simply not to use E85 during extreme low temperature spells.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Sweden has achieved the largest E85 flexible-fuel vehicle fleet in Europe, with a sharp growth from 717 vehicles in 2001 to 243,136 through December 2014. As of 2008 a total of 70% of all flexifuel vehicles operating in the EU were registered in Sweden. The recent and accelerated growth of the Swedish fleet of E85 flexifuel vehicles is the result of the National Climate Policy in Global Cooperation Bill passed in 2005, which not only ratified the Kyoto Protocol but also sought to meet the 2003 EU Biofuels Directive regarding targets for use of biofuels, and also let to the 2006 government's commitment to eliminate oil imports by 2020.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: In order to achieve these goals several government incentives were implemented. Ethanol, as the other biofuels, was exempted of both, the CO and energy taxes until 2009, resulting in a 30% price reduction at the pump of E85 fuel over gasoline. Furthermore, other demand side incentives for flexifuel vehicle owners include a bonus to buyers of FFVs, exemption from the Stockholm congestion tax, up to 20% discount on auto insurance, free parking spaces in most of the largest cities, owner annual registration taxes, and a 20% tax reduction for flexifuel company cars. Also, a part of the program, the Swedish Government ruled that 25% of their vehicle purchases (excluding police, fire and ambulance vehicles) must be alternative fuel vehicles. By the first months of 2008, this package of incentives resulted in sales of flexible-fuel cars representing 25% of new car sales.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: On the supply side, since 2005 the gasoline fuelling stations selling more than 3 million liters of fuel a year are required to sell at least one type of biofuel, resulting in more than 1,200 gas stations selling E85 by August 2008. Despite all the sharp growth of E85 flexifuel cars, by 2007 they represented just two percent of the four million Swedish vehicles. In addition, this law also mandated all new filling stations to offer alternative fuels, and stations with an annual volume of more than one million liters are required to have an alternative fuel pump by December 2009. Therefore, the number of E85 pumps is expected to reach by 2009 nearly 60% of Sweden's 4,000 filling stations.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: The Swedish-made Koenigsegg Jesko 300, the low downforce version of the Koenigsegg Jesko, is currently the fastest and most powerful flexible fuel vehicle with its turbocharged V8 producing over 1600 hp when running on biofuel, as compared to 1280 hp on 95 octane unleaded gasoline.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Flexifuel vehicles are sold in 18 European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Ford, Volvo and Saab are the main automakers offering flexifuel autos in the region.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Biofuel cars in general get strong tax incentives in France, including a 0 or 50% reduction on the tax on new vehicles, and a 40% reduction on CO tax for new cars. For company cars there is a corporate car tax free for two years and a recovery of 80% of the value added tax (VAT) on E85 vehicles. Also, E85 fuel price is set significantly lower than diesel or gasoline, resulting in E85 at € 0.80, diesel at €1.15, and gasoline at €1.30 per liter, as of April 2007. By May 2008, France had 211 pumps selling E85, even though the government made plans for the installation of up to 500 E85 pumps by year end 2007. French automakers Renault and PSA (Citroen & Peugeot) announced they will start selling FFV cars beginning in the summer 2007.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Biofuel emphasis in Germany is on biodiesel, and no specific incentives have been granted for E85 flex-fuel cars, however there is complete exemption of taxes on all biofuels while there is a normal tax of €0.65 per liter of petroleum fuels. The distribution of E85 began in 2005, and with 219 stations as of September 2008, Germany ranks second after Sweden with the most E85 fueling stations in the EU.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: As of July 2012 retail prices of E85 was €1.09 per liter, and gasoline was priced at €1.60 per liter (for gasoline RON 95), then providing enough margin to compensate for ethanol's lower fuel economy.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Ford has offered the Ford Focus since August 2005 in Germany. Ford is about to offer also the Mondeo and other models as FFV versions between 2008 and 2010. The Saab 9-5 and Saab 9-3 Biopower, the Peugeot 308 Bioflex, the Citroën C4 Bioflex, the Audi A5, two models of the Cadillac BLS, and five Volvo models are also available in the German market by 2008. Since 2011, Dacia offers the Logan MCV with a 1.6l 16v flexfuel engine.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Ireland is the third best seller European market of E85 flex-fuel vehicles, after Sweden and France. Bioethanol (E85) in Ireland is made from whey, a waste product of cheese manufacturing. The Irish government established several incentives, including a 50% discount in vehicle registration taxes (VRT), which can account for more than one third of the retail price of a new car in Ireland (around €6,500). The bioethanol element of the E85 fuel is excise-free for fuel companies, allowing retail prices to be low enough to offset the 25 per cent cut in fuel economy that E-85 cars offer, due to ethanol's lower energy content than gasoline. Also, the value added tax (VAT) on the fuel can also be claimed back. E-85 fuel is available across the country in more than 20 of Maxol service stations. In October 2005, the 1.8 Ford Focus FFV became the first flexible-fuel vehicle to be commercially sold in Ireland. Later Ford launched the C-max and the Mondeo flexifuel models. Saab and Volvo also have E85 models available.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: From 1 January 2011 E85 fuel is no longer excise-free in Ireland. Maxol has announced they will not provide E85 when their current supplies have run out.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: The first flexifuel vehicles were introduced in Spain by late 2007, with the acquisition of 80 cars for use in the Spaniard official government fleet. At that time the country had only three gas stations selling E85, making necessary to deploy an official E85 fueling station in Madrid to attend these vehicles. Despite the introduction in the Spaniard market of several flexifuel models, by the end of 2008 still persists the problems of adequate E85 fueling infrastructure, as only 10 gas stations were selling E85 fuel to the public in the entire country.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: The UK government established several incentives for E85 flex-fuel vehicles. These include a fuel duty rebate on E85 fuel of 20 p per liter, until 2010; a £10 to 15 reduction in the vehicle excise duty (VED); and a 2% annual company car tax discount for flex-fuel cars. Despite the small number of E85 pump stations available, limited to the Morrisons supermarket chain stations, most automakers offer the same models in the UK that are available in the European market. In 2005 the Ford Focus Flexi-Fuel became the first flexible-fuel car sold in the UK, though E85 pumps were not opened until 2006. Volvo now offers its flexifuel models S80, S40, C30, V50 and V70. Other models available in the UK are the Ford C-Max Flexi-Fuel, and the Saab models 9-5 and 9-3 Flex-Fuel Biopower, and the new Saab Aero X BioPower E100 bioethanol. Despite being introduced around a decade ago, E85 is no longer commercially available in the UK


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: , there were more than 21 million E85 flex-fuel vehicles in the United States, up from about 11 million flex-fuel cars and light trucks in operation as of early 2013. The number of flex-fuel vehicles on U.S roads increased from 1.4 million in 2001, to 4.1 million in 2005, and rose to 7.3 million in 2008.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: For the 2011 model year there are about 70 vehicles E85 capable, including sedans, vans, SUVs and pick-up trucks. Many of the models available in the market are trucks and sport-utility vehicles getting less than when filled with gasoline. Actual consumption of E85 among flex-fuel vehicle owners is limited. Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Energy estimated that in 2011 only 862,837 flex-fuel fleet-operated vehicles were regularly fueled with E85. As a result, from all the ethanol fuel consumed in the country in 2009, only 1% was E85 consumed by flex-fuel vehicles.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: The E85 blend is used in gasoline engines modified to accept such higher concentrations of ethanol, and the fuel injection is regulated through a dedicated sensor, which automatically detects the amount of ethanol in the fuel, allowing to adjust both fuel injection and spark timing accordingly to the actual blend available in the vehicle's tank. Because ethanol contains close to 34% less energy per unit volume than gasoline, E85 FFVs have a lower mileage per gallon than gasoline. Based on EPA tests for all 2006 E85 models, the average fuel economy for E85 vehicles was 25.56% lower than unleaded gasoline.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: The American E85 flex-fuel vehicle was developed to run on any mixture of unleaded gasoline and ethanol, anywhere from 0% to 85% ethanol by volume. Both fuels are mixed in the same tank, and E85 is sold already blended. In order to reduce ethanol evaporative emissions and to avoid problems starting the engine during cold weather, the maximum blend of ethanol was set to 85%. There is also a seasonal reduction of the ethanol content to E70 (called winter E85 blend) in very cold regions, where temperatures fall below during the winter. In Wyoming for example, E70 is sold as E85 from October to May.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: E85 flex-fuel vehicles are becoming increasingly common in the Midwest, where corn is a major crop and is the primary feedstock for ethanol fuel production. Regional retail E85 prices vary widely across the US, with more favorable prices in the Midwest region, where most corn is grown and ethanol produced. Depending on the vehicle capabilities, the break-even price of E85 has to be between 25 and 30% lower than gasoline.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: A 2005 survey found that 68% of American flex-fuel car owners were not aware they owned an E85 flex. This was because the exteriors of flex and non-flex vehicles look exactly the same; there is no sale price difference between them; the lack of consumers' awareness about E85s; and also the initial decision of American automakers of not putting any kind of exterior labeling, so buyers could be unaware they are purchasing an E85 vehicle. Since 2008, all new FFV models in the US feature a bright yellow gas cap to remind drivers of the E85 capabilities and proper flex-fuel badging.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Some critics have argued that American automakers have been producing E85 flex models motivated by a loophole in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) requirements, that allows for a fuel economy credit for every flex-fuel vehicle sold, whether or not in practice these vehicles are fueled with E85. This loophole might allow the car industry to meet the CAFE targets in fuel economy just by spending between and that it cost to turn a conventional vehicle into a flex-fuel, without investing in new technology to improve fuel economy, and saving them the potential fines for not achieving that standard in a given model year. The CAFE standards proposed in 2011 for the period 2017–2025 will allow flexible-fuel vehicles to receive extra credit but only when the carmakers present data proving how much E85 such vehicles have actually consumed.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: A major restriction hampering sales of E85 flex vehicles, or fueling with E85, is the limited infrastructure available to sell E85 to the public with only 2% of the motor fuel stations offering E85 by March 2014. , there were only 3,218 fueling stations selling E85 to the public in the entire U.S., while about 156,000 retail motor fuel outlets do not offer any ethanol blend. In addition, there has been a great concentration of E85 stations in the Corn Belt states. The main constraint for a more rapid expansion of E85 availability is that it requires dedicated storage tanks at filling stations, at an estimated cost of for each dedicated ethanol tank. The Obama Administration set the goal of installing 10,000 blender pumps nationwide until 2015, and to support this target the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a rule in May 2011 to include flexible fuel pumps in the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). This ruling will provide financial assistance to fuel station owners to install E85 and blender pumps.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: A flex fuel conversion kit is a kit that allows a conventional equipment manufactured vehicle to be altered to operate on propane, natural gas, methane gas, ethanol, or electricity are classified as aftermarket AFV conversions. All vehicle conversions, except those that are completed for a vehicle to run on electricity, must meet current applicable U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: In 2008, Ford delivered the first flex-fuel plug-in hybrid as part of a demonstration project, a Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid capable of running on E85 or gasoline. General Motors announced that the new Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid, launched in the United States market in December 2010, would be flex-fuel-capable in 2013. General Motors do Brasil announced that it will import from five to ten Volts to Brazil during the first semester of 2011 as part of a demonstration and also to lobby the federal government to enact financial incentives for green cars. If successful, GM would adapt the Volt to operate on ethanol fuel, as most new cars sold in Brazil are flex-fuel.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: In 2008, Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford pledged to manufacture 50 percent of their entire vehicle line as flexible fuel in model year 2012, if enough fueling infrastructure develops. The Open Fuel Standard Act (OFS), introduced to Congress in May 2011, is intended to promote a massive adoption of flex-fuel vehicles capable of running on ethanol or methanol. The bill requires that 50 percent of automobiles made in 2014, 80 percent in 2016, and 95 percent in 2017, would be manufactured and warranted to operate on non-petroleum-based fuels, which includes existing technologies such as flex-fuel, natural gas, hydrogen, biodiesel, plug-in electric and fuel cell.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: , almost half of new vehicles produced by Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors are flex-fuel, meaning roughly one-quarter of all new vehicles sold by 2015 are capable of using up to E85. However, obstacles to widespread use of E85 fuel remain. A 2014 analysis by the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) found that oil companies prevent or discourage affiliated retailers from selling E85 through rigid franchise and branding agreements, restrictive supply contracts, and other tactics. The report showed independent retailers are five times more likely to offer E85 than retailers carrying an oil company brand.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: In January 2007 GM brought UK-sourced Saab 9-5 Biopower E85 flex-fuel vehicles to Australia as a trial, in order to measure interest in ethanol-powered vehicles in the country. Saab Australia placed the vehicles with the fleets of the Queensland Government, the media, and some ethanol producers. E85 is not available widely in Australia, but the Manildra Group provided the E85 blend fuel for this trial.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Saab Australia became the first car maker to produce an E85 flex-fuel car for the Australian market with the Saab 9-5 BioPower. One month later launched the new 9-3 BioPower, the first vehicle in Australia to give drivers a choice of three fuels, E85, diesel or gasoline, and both automobiles are sold for a small premium. Australia's largest independent fuel retailer, United Petroleum, announced plans to install Australia's first commercial E85 fuel pumps, one in Sydney and one in Melbourne.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: GM Holden, the Victorian state government, Coskata, Caltex, Veolia Environmental Services and Mitsui have announced a consortium with a co-ordinated plan to build a bio-ethanol plant from household waste for use as E85 fuel. In August 2010 Caltex launched the E85 ethanol fuel called Bio E-Flex, designed for use in the Holden Commodore VE Series II flex-fuel vehicles to be released later in 2010. Caltex Australia plans to begin selling Bio E-Flex in Melbourne from September and expects to have Bio E-Flex available in more than 30 service stations in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra by the end of October, with plans to increase to 100 metropolitan and regional locations in 2011.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: As part of the North American auto market, by 2007 Canada had available 51 models of E85 flex-vehicles, most from Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, including automobiles, pickup trucks, and SUVs. The country had around 1.6 million capable flex fuel E85s on the roads by 2014. However, most users are not aware they own an E85, as vehicles are not clearly labeled as such, and even though the newer models have a yellow cap in the fuel tank informing that the vehicle can handle E85, most users are still not aware because there are very few gas stations offering E85. Another major drawback to greater E85 fuel use is the fact that by June 2008 Canada had only three public E85 pumps, all located in Ontario, in the cities of Guelph, Chatham, and Woodstock. E85 fueling is available primarily for fleet vehicles, including 20 government refueling stations not available for the public. The main feedstocks for E85 production in Canada are corn and wheat, and there were several proposals being discussed to increase the actual use of E85 fuel in FFVs, such as creating an ethanol-friendly highway or ethanol corridor.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: In March 2009 the Colombian government enacted a mandate to introduce E85 flexible-fuel cars. The executive decree applies to all gasoline-powered vehicles with engines smaller than 2.0 liters manufactured, imported, and commercialized in the country beginning in 2012, mandating that 60% of such vehicles must have flex-fuel engines capable of running with gasoline or E85, or any blend of both. By 2014 the mandatory quota is 80% and it will reach 100 percent by 2016. All vehicles with engines bigger than 2.0 liters must be E85 capable starting in 2013. The decree also mandates that by 2011 all gasoline stations must provide infrastructure to guarantee availability of E85 throughout the country. The mandatory introduction of E85 flex-fuels has caused controversy among carmakers, car dealers, gasoline station owners, and even some ethanol producers complained the industry is not ready to supply enough ethanol for the new E85 fleet.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has emphasised the adoption of alternative fuels which will be import substitutes, cost-effective, pollution-free, indigenous, and discourage the use of Petrol or diesel. During an event held on 20 October 2021, while addressing the media and journalists he has said that the government will ask all vehicle manufacturers to make flex-fuel engines under the Euro VI emission norms in the next six-eight months. Flex-fuel, or flexible fuel, is an alternative fuel made of a combination of gasoline and methanol or ethanol.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Mr. Gadkari has predicted that in the next 15 years, Indian automobile industry will be worth Rs 15 lakh crore and the Government is planning to submit an affidavit in the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India to allow manufacturing of flex-fuel engines under the Euro IV emission norms but for now he said that the Indian Government will ask all vehicle manufacturers to make flex-fuel engines (that can run on more than one fuel) under the Euro VI emission norms in the next 6–8 months.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: In 2006 New Zealand began a pilot project with two E85 Ford Focus Flexi-Fuel evaluation cars. The main feedstock used in New Zealand for ethanol production is whey, a by-product of milk production.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Government officials and businessmen from Paraguay began negotiations in 2007 with Brazilian automakers in order to import flex cars that run on any blend of gasoline and ethanol. If successful, Paraguay would become the first destination for Brazilian flex-fuel car exports. In May 2008, the Paraguayan government announced a plan to eliminate import taxes of flex-fuel vehicles and an incentive program for ethanol production. The plan also includes the purchase of 20,000 flex cars in 2009 for the government fleet.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: In 2006, tax incentives were established in Thailand for the introduction of compressed natural gas (CNG) as an alternative fuel, by eliminating import duties and lowering excise taxes on CNG-compatible cars. Then in 2007, Thai authorities approved incentives for the production of "eco-cars", with the goal of the country to become a regional hub for the production of small, affordable and fuel-efficient cars. Seven automakers joint in the program, Toyota, Suzuki, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Honda, Tata and Volkswagen. In 2008 the government announced priority for E85, expecting these flex-fuel vehicles to become widely available in Thailand in 2009, three years ahead of schedule. The incentives include cuts in excise tax rates for E85-compatible cars and reduction of corporate taxes for ethanol producers to make sure E85 fuel supply will be met. This new plan however, brought confusion and protests by the automakers which sign-up for the "eco-cars", as competition with the E85 flex-fuel cars will negatively affect their ongoing plans and investments, and their production lines will have to be upgraded at a high cost for them to produce flex-fuel cars. They also complained that flex-fuel vehicles popular in a few countries around the world, limiting their export potential as compared with other engine technologies.


title: Flexible-fuel vehicle

text: Despite the controversy, the first E85 flexible fuel vehicles were introduced in November 2008. The first two models available in the Thai market were the Volvo S80 and the C30. The S80 is manufactured locally and the C30 is imported. By the time of the introduction of flex vehicles there were already two gas stations with E85 fuel available. During 2009 it was expected that 15 fueling stations in Bangkok will have E85 fuel available. In October 2009 the Mitsubishi Lancer Ex was launched becoming the first mass-production E85 flexi-fuel vehicle produced in Thailand.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Andrew James Scheer (born May 20, 1979) is a Canadian politician who has served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Regina—Qu'Appelle since 2004. Scheer served as the 35th speaker of the House of Commons from 2011 to 2015, and was the leader of the Conservative Party and leader of the Official Opposition from 2017 to 2020.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in criminology, political science, and history. Elected to represent the Saskatchewan riding of Regina—Qu'Appelle at the age of 25, Scheer was re-elected in 2006, 2008, and 2011 before becoming House speaker at age 32, making him the youngest speaker in the chamber's history. He held the speaker role for the entirety of the 41st Canadian Parliament. Following the Conservatives' defeat in 2015, Scheer launched his campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party, running under the slogan of "Real conservative. Real leader." On May 27, 2017, he was elected leader of the Conservative Party in an upset, narrowly defeating former cabinet minister Maxime Bernier.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer has described himself as focused on economic development, fiscal restraint, and reducing inefficiencies in government. He is a staunch opponent of the federal carbon tax and favours the construction of several pipelines. In the 2019 federal election, the Conservatives under Scheer received a plurality of the popular vote and gained 26 seats, but remained the Official Opposition. On December 12, 2019, following weeks of criticism within the party for the unsuccessful campaign he ran, Scheer abruptly announced he would be resigning as party leader effective upon the election of a new one. He was succeeded as leader on August 24, 2020 by former cabinet minister Erin O'Toole.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer was born on May 20, 1979, at the Riverside Hospital in Ottawa, Ontario and was raised in Ottawa. He is the son of Mary Gerarda Therese (née Enright), a nurse, and James D. Scheer, a librarian, proofreader with the "Ottawa Citizen", and Catholic deacon. James was born in the United States, making his son Andrew a U.S. citizen at birth despite being born in Canada. According to a 2019 Maclean's article, Scheer's family earned considerably more than the median income for most Canadian families. Scheer has two sisters. Part of Scheer's family is from Romania. Scheer spent summers during his youth with his maternal grandparents in Mississauga. Scheer graduated from Immaculata High School and received the school's "Distinguished Catholic Alumni Award" in 2012.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: In 1998, Scheer began his studies in criminology, political science, and history at the University of Ottawa, from which he would ultimately graduate in 2008, receiving his Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree four years after he was first elected to Parliament. During his earlier university years, Scheer worked on several political campaigns, including the campaign to merge the Progressive Conservative and Reform parties and Preston Manning's campaign to lead the Canadian Alliance. He also worked in the correspondence department of the Office of the leader of the Opposition under Stockwell Day. Scheer also worked on Ottawa city councillor Karin Howard's youth advisory committee. In his third year of university, Scheer ran as a school trustee for the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board in the 2000 Ottawa municipal elections but lost to incumbent Kathy Ablett. After meeting his future wife Jill Ryan at the University of Ottawa, Scheer moved to his hometown of Regina, Saskatchewan, and continued his studies at the University of Regina, taking some courses for his BA there.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: In Regina, Scheer worked as an insurance clerk, a waiter, and an assistant in the constituency office of Canadian Alliance MP Larry Spencer. In 2005, Scheer's blog as an MP listed that he was an accredited insurance broker, and in 2007 the biography section on Scheer's MP website stated that he passed the Canadian Accredited Insurance Broker program in Saskatchewan and started his insurance industry career at Shenher Insurance in Regina. During the 2019 election, when Scheer was Conservative leader, his biography on the party website stated that he had worked as an insurance broker. Upon investigation "The Globe and Mail" found no evidence that he was ever accredited as an insurance broker. Scheer responded to these claims by maintaining that he received accreditation for general insurance after leaving Shenher Insurance in Regina. As of September 2019, the provincial regulator, Insurance Councils of Saskatchewan, was reviewing the matter.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer was elected at age 25 as a Conservative candidate in the federal election of 2004, in the riding of Regina—Qu'Appelle, beating New Democratic Party (NDP) MP Lorne Nystrom by 861 votes. Near the end of the race, Scheer accused Nystrom of being soft on child pornography. Scheer was re-elected in the federal election of 2006, again defeating Nystrom, this time by a margin of 2,740 votes.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: In April 2006, during the 39th Canadian Parliament, Scheer was named as assistant deputy chairman of Committees of the Whole, one of three deputy speakers. He also sponsored a bill that would create minimum sentences for those convicted of motor vehicle theft called Bill C-343, "An Act to amend the Criminal Code (motor vehicle theft)".


title: Andrew Scheer

text: On November 21, 2008, during the 40th Canadian Parliament, he was named deputy speaker of the House of Commons and chairman of Committees of the Whole, succeeding NDP MP Bill Blaikie.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: When the Conservative Party won a majority at the federal election in 2011, Scheer's experience as deputy speaker led many to consider him the front-runner to be elected speaker of the House of Commons. On June 2, 2011, Scheer defeated Denise Savoie, the lone opposition and only woman candidate, in the sixth round of balloting. Scheer became the youngest House speaker in Canadian history. Liberal MPs, who opposed Scheer's candidacy, criticized the NDP for voting for their own party member instead of tipping the balance toward Conservative MP Lee Richardson based on the MPs' beliefs that Scheer was "Harper's Boy".


title: Andrew Scheer

text: During his tenure, some individual opposition MPs were critical of some of his decisions. Liberal MP Irwin Cotler questioned his impartiality due to a decision over a robocall incident with Campaign Research (it was reported that Scheer was a client of the firm).


title: Andrew Scheer

text: During the 2011 Canadian federal election voter suppression scandal, opposition politicians raised concerns over Scheer's interventions to block questions after "The Globe and Mail" revealed that his riding association loaned $3,000 to Marty Burke while Burke's campaign was under scrutiny by Elections Canada over the incident.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer was re-elected in the 2015 federal election in which the Conservative government was defeated. He was appointed opposition House leader by leader of the Official Opposition and interim Conservative party leader Rona Ambrose. He thought about running for the position of interim party leader but was dissuaded by fellow caucus MP Chris Warkentin, who pointed out that the interim leader cannot take the permanent position. On September 13, 2016, he announced his resignation as House leader outside a party caucus meeting in Halifax in order to explore a bid for the leadership of the federal Conservative Party.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: In 2016, Scheer publicly voiced his support for the UK's decision to vote in favour of Brexit during the referendum. Later in 2018, Scheer tweeted, "I was pro-Brexit before it was cool."


title: Andrew Scheer

text: On September 28, 2016, Scheer announced his bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party, saying that he had the support of 32 members of the Conservative caucus. On May 27, 2017, Scheer was elected as the second leader of the Conservative Party, beating runner up Maxime Bernier and more than 12 others with 50.95 per cent of the vote through 13 rounds. Bernier later attributed his failure to what he called the "fake conservatives" in the supply management dairy lobby and agricultural sector. Scheer garnered laughs at the annual Press Gallery dinner by joking:


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer's campaign for the Conservative leadership was run under the slogan "Real conservative. Real leader." He avoided advocating the social conservative issues that some of the candidates championed, saying that he wanted to "reach a broader audience of Canadians". Positions on which he took a strong stance included scrapping the carbon tax and being "tough on crime". During his political career, Scheer has been compared to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and has been called "Harper with a smile" or "Stephen Harper 2.0". Scheer is considered a Blue Tory and is critical of the policies of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, having also been critical of Trudeau's late father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Scheer considered former prime minister John Diefenbaker and British member of the European Parliament (MEP) Daniel Hannan as political influences. Scheer described U.S. senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio as "strong conservative voices" during the 2016 Manning Center Conference. Unlike other candidates, Scheer's leadership team was focused less on headlines or eye-grabbing policy and more on data and organizing.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: During the Conservative leadership race, Scheer stated that he would balance the federal budget within two years of forming government, but his platform on specific reforms to accomplish this was not revealed at that time.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer benefited from the unexpected support of Brad Trost during the leadership race. It was reported that some of Trost supporters contravened the "Canada Elections Act" and party membership rules by offering incentives to vote. Dimitri Soudas, a former Harper aide, pointed out that it violated election rules and it benefited Scheer's campaign but the ballots had been destroyed so the result stood.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer was criticized by opposition politicians for removing his campaign platform after winning the Conservative leadership race. Conservative strategists suggested that the ideas proposed by Scheer during the race were not likely to be part of the party's 2019 election platform. It was later revealed in a Dairy Farmers of Canada briefing document after the 2018 Conservative Convention in Halifax that "The powers of the leader are far reaching in preventing policy from being in the party platform. DFC [Dairy Farmers of Canada] has been told by the Leader’s office that he will exercise this power, and that this policy will not be in the Conservative election platform regardless of the outcome at convention".


title: Andrew Scheer

text: The day after the election it was revealed that Hamish Marshall, Scheer's campaign manager, was listed as an IT specialist and one of the directors of the far right news outlet The Rebel Media. On October 16, 2017, "The Globe and Mail" asked Scheer if he knew that Marshall worked for the Rebel during the leadership campaign, he responded: "I didn't ask Hamish about every client he had" and then ended the interview. Later, a Conservative spokesperson clarified that Scheer was aware that the Rebel was one of Marshall's many clients, but did not know the specifics. The day after, Marshall was named Conservative campaign chair for the 43rd Canadian federal election. On March 21, 2018, in an interview with Macleans, Scheer stated that Marshall and his past relationship with the Rebel should not be conflated with his selection as campaign chair.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: After the August 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia "Unite the Right" rally, Scheer denounced "Rebel News" due to its sympathetic coverage of the rally, and stated that he would stop doing interviews with The Rebel Media until its "editorial directions" changed. The following day, Scheer stated that he would not be granting interviews with Rebel going forward in an interview with the "National Post".


title: Andrew Scheer

text: On January 4, 2018, Scheer expelled Senator Lynn Beyak from the Conservative caucus, after she refused to remove one of her letters that suggested Indigenous people want to get things for "no effort". He also stated that "Racism will not be tolerated in the Conservative caucus or Conservative Party of Canada". Scheer said that his office was only aware of the letters on 2 January, but Garnet Angeconeb, a residential school survivor, stated that he emailed Scheer and Conservative Senate Leader Larry Smith about them on September 15, 2017, and did not get a response. In response, Beyak said neither Scheer nor anyone from his office contacted her to take down a letter. A senior Conservative source supported Beyak's accusation.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer travelled to the United Kingdom in March 2018 to "lay the groundwork" for a Canada–UK trade agreement, should he become prime minister after the 2019 election. In London, he met with Prime Minister Theresa May, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, and other UK ministers including Liam Fox and Sajid Javid. Scheer's trip faced minor criticism from "The Globe and Mail" and the "Ottawa Citizen". The "Citizen" editorial commented that the trip was "undiplomatic" and "not statesmanlike", while the "Globe" editorial pointed out that a Canada–UK trade agreement had already been announced the prior year by Prime Minister Trudeau.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Toward the end of March 2018, the Opposition held a filibuster over the government's India trip, which was intended to persuade the governing Liberals to answer questions in the House of Commons about the apparent scandal, and provide open and transparent information to the Canadian public; the filibuster lasted 21 hours costing taxpayers $50,000 per hour in overtime fees. It was revealed that a few days before commencing the filibuster to demand information, Scheer's office was offered a briefing by the Privy Council Office regarding the trip. A spokesperson of Scheer's responded to these claims by stating "Has the government offered Andrew a briefing? The answer is 'no, and "This [is] fake news." A day later, Andrew Scheer called the allegation "completely false" and stated he would accept an offer if it were made to all members of Parliament. It was later revealed that the clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick approached Scheer's chief of staff and Conservative MP Tony Clement to brief Scheer on any information the Privy Council may have. Clement responded that he would not confirm or deny it. A couple of weeks later, Scheer accepted a briefing on the matter.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: After the Conservative Convention in August 2018, Scheer denied an allegation that the Dairy Farmers of Canada worked with his office to block a motion to change the party's position on supply management after a page from the briefing book was already made public on Twitter by a Conservative delegate.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: At the 2019 election, Scheer led the Conservatives to a gain of 26 seats for a total of 121, up from 95 at the time of dissolution. However, they finished 36 seats behind the Liberals despite winning 34.4 per cent of the popular vote to the Liberals' 33.1 per cent, a margin of just over 240,000 votes. It was the first time since 1979 that a party won the most seats without winning the popular vote It was also the first time since a government took power with less than 35 per cent of the national popular vote since the John A. Macdonald-led Tories in 1867, who had 34.8 per cent.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Much of the Conservatives' plurality was built on large margins in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where they won 70 per cent and 65 per cent of the popular vote, respectively. However, they only won five seats in the suburbs of the Greater Toronto Area and were completely shut out in Toronto itself, in part due to the provincial Conservative government of Doug Ford.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: On December 12, 2019, Scheer announced that he would resign as leader of the Conservatives and Official Opposition, staying on until a new leader could be selected. The same day, the Conservative Party confirmed that it had been paying the difference in the cost of private school tuition for Scheer's children in Saskatchewan and the higher cost of tuition in Ottawa—insisting the tuition matter was not the reason for Scheer's resignation.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: On September 8, 2020, Scheer was announced as the Opposition Critic for Infrastructure & Communities in his successor Erin O'Toole's shadow cabinet. In that role, he sponsored private member Bill C-269 to amend the Fisheries Act to prohibit the deposit of raw sewage in water frequented by fish.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: On February 2, 2022, Scheer posed for a picture posted on Saskatoon—Grasswood MP Kevin Waugh's Twitter page along with Waugh, Battlefords-Lloydminster MP Rosemarie Falk, Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan MP Fraser Tolmie, Regina-Lewvan MP Warren Steinley and Sen. Denise Batters standing with the Saskatchewan flag at the Freedom Convoy 2022. The mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson, demanded an apology, as he felt the protesters actions are not welcomed and that "MPs and senator in the picture should know better."


title: Andrew Scheer

text: He has endorsed Pierre Poilievre's campaign to be leader of the Conservative Party in the 2022 Conservative Leadership Election.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: On September 13, 2022, Poilievre, as leader of the Conservative Party, appointed Scheer to become Opposition House Leader.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer has proposed a tax cut for the lowest income tax bracket. This tax bracket, for income up to $47,630, would be reduced from 15 per cent to 13.75 per cent over the next four years. The Conservatives has stated this tax cut would save the average individual $444 a year, and a two-income couple $850 per year. Scheer has promised to restore the Children's Fitness Tax Credit, where families can claim $1,000 annually for costs related to fitness or sports. Families with children with disabilities can claim $1,500. Scheer has states that he will cancel Canada's $250 million annual contribution to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer has expressed support for free markets stating that he believes in "a free market where businesses profit by having the best product or service".


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer was a major advocate for the removal of the Canadian Wheat Board. Scheer proposed a policy to mandate the inclusion of national flag decals on gas pumps to highlight "Canadian-sourced, ethically produced oil".


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer has pledged to repeal the federal carbon tax in order to reduce the tax burden on individuals and businesses.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer says he wants to make maternity and parental leave less expensive for families. He has promised to make employment insurance for parental and maternity benefits tax-free. He wants to introduce a tax credit to families who send their children to private schools. Scheer also proposes raising the limit on how much employment income a parent can earn each week while on leave. He has vowed to remove HST/GST from home heating bills and lower business taxes. In February 2018 Scheer introduced a private member bill, the second of his career. Bill C-394, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (parenting tax credit), or as he titled it the Supporting New Parents Act, would create a new tax credit intended to offset federal taxes owing on benefits received from maternity and parental leave. The parliamentary budget office found out that the credit would cost $607.6 million in lost revenue and would rise incrementally each year for the next five years.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: During the 2019 Canadian federal election, Scheer proposed he would legislate that corporate takeovers by foreign state-owned enterprises be subject to a national-security review.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer has promised to increase the federal government's contribution to the Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP), increasing it from 20 per cent to 30 per cent annually up to $2,500. He added that low-income families would receive 50 per cent on the first $500 invested instead of the current 40 per cent. He has also promised to revive the Children's Arts and Learning Tax Credit, where families can claim $500 per child for extracurricular arts or education programs, and families with children with disabilities are eligible to claim $1,000 per child.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer has described his opposition to a federally-imposed carbon tax. He has said that if he is to form government, he will act to repeal any elements of a plan to implement a carbon tax enacted by the Trudeau government.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer has proposed to restore the public transit tax credit, which the party says is part of its environment plan. The Green Public Transit Tax Credit, would refund transit users a 15 per cent credit on their taxes of the cost of a fare pass. Scheer has also promised to implement a Green Home Tax Credit, where homeowners could claim a 20 per cent refundable tax credit for spending between $1,000 and $20,000 on energy-efficient home renovations. The Conservative climate plan also promises a $250 million investment in a "green technology and innovation fund," that would leverage public and private funds to help green tech companies and entrepreneurs secure capital.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: In October 2016, Scheer voted against the ratification of the Paris Agreement. However, he voted to reaffirm Canadian ratification on the Paris Agreement in June 2017. Pundits argued that his June 2017 vote was used as a way to avoid accusations comparing him to U.S. President Donald Trump, who pulled the United States out of the accord, a few days earlier.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer told "Le Soleil" that he does not support a "war on cars" when supporting a tunnel between Quebec City and Levis.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer pledged that a Conservative government would extend the period of background checks to an individual's entire life instead of the current system of five years. He opposes a long-gun registry, opposes a proposed ban on handgun ownership, and has pledged to repeal the new regulations in the Liberal government's Bill C-71. Scheer has proposed to introduce legislation that classifies firearms, instead of giving the authority to cabinet or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer says he would not pursue a free trade agreement with China if he were prime minister, and he would ban Huawei from Canada's 5G network. He has criticized the Liberals for not ratifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership quickly enough.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: In December 2017, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, Scheer did not take a public position. However, on February 26, 2018, Scheer stated that a Conservative government – if elected in 2019 – would recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer tweeted in May 2018 that he was "praying for the safety of the soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces and all Israelis tonight as they face missile attacks".


title: Andrew Scheer

text: After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told CTV's "Question Period" that the government was examining means to block shipment of Canadian-built light-armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia in protest of the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Scheer stated that he firmly opposed any such move by the Liberal government. The arms sale to Saudi Arabia was brokered by the former Conservative government. Scheer has stated that Canada should ban the import of oil from Saudi Arabia due to human rights and environmental concerns. In 2018 Scheer demanded that the gender-based analysis requirement imposed on Canadian pipeline projects by the Liberal government be instead applied to oil imported from Saudi Arabia.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer was one of thirteen Canadians banned from travelling to Russia under retaliatory sanctions imposed by President Vladimir Putin in March 2014. Scheer supported sending peacekeepers to the Russian-Ukrainian border believing that "the defence of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity should be a priority for Canada's government on the international stage."


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer wants to prioritize helping those he considers the most vulnerable refugees, namely religious minorities like Christians in the Middle East who face death for conversion away from Islam. He prefers to help refugees integrate through private sponsorship instead of government sponsorship. He contends that the refugees who are currently struggling to find housing, jobs and language training do so because of the Liberal Party "using a devastating tragedy for political purposes".


title: Andrew Scheer

text: On February 8, 2018, Scheer expressed good will towards opening the constitution in support of then-premier Philippe Couillard's proposal based around five conditions which were: the codification of a distinct society; limits on federal spending power; while guaranteeing representation on the Supreme Court; a constitutional veto right; and increased control over immigration to Quebec in the constitution. In May 2018, Scheer promised to advocate for a robust Quebec nationalism, and to give Quebec more control over immigration and culture as well as collecting then transferring their federal income tax.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: On March 28, 2018, The "Journal de Montréal" revealed that Scheer's personal website was offered in English only. After the publication of the article, a French version of the site was created.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: In August 2018 Scheer defended a woman with links to anti-immigration activist groups such as the Front Patriotique du Quebec and the Storm Alliance after Justin Trudeau denounced her questions.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer opposes the non-partisan senate and has suggested that he would appoint people to the Senate "who share my goal of lowering taxes and growing the private sector". He also said "they would be Conservative senators who would implement the conservative vision for Canada".


title: Andrew Scheer

text: On September 16, 2017, Scheer criticized Senator Lynn Beyak following her comments about Indigenous people. He stated that any decision to remove her would be made by the leader of the Conservatives in the Senate, Larry Smith. Beyak was eventually expelled from the caucus on January 4, 2018. Scheer has encouraged the Senate Conservative Caucus to block the passage of the "Cannabis Act".


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer is considered pro-life by the Campaign Life Coalition and "has an impeccable pro life voting record" in the House of Commons. He has said that he will respect the Conservative Party's official policy on abortion, which currently states, "A Conservative government will not support any legislation to regulate abortion". Scheer reiterated his stance on abortion during a 2017 CBC News interview, stating that he still considers himself pro-life, but would not reopen the issue if he were prime minister. In 2008, he was disappointed when the Order of Canada was given to Henry Morgentaler, and annoyed that his award came on Canada Day. In 2018, Scheer accused the Liberal government of "imposing" the prime minister's views on upholding "women's rights and women's reproductive rights" when faith groups are applying for funding for summer jobs programs.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer voted against Bill C-14, which allows practitioners to assist in the suicide of mentally competent adults with "enduring and intolerable suffering" in cases where death is "reasonably foreseeable".


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer was critical of Justin Trudeau's endorsement of comments made by Governor General Julie Payette on questioning people who support creationism stating that millions were "offended" by her comments.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer has promised that universities or colleges "that do not foster a culture of free speech and inquiry on campus" will not receive federal funding under his government, though after University of Toronto said it would not open space on its campus for an event hosted by the Canadian Nationalist Party, he stated "I respect the right for universities to determine which outside groups they give a platform to. And so that's within their purview" and that his policy would be based on "an objective set of criteria". When asked by cabinet member Kirsty Duncan if a school like St. Paul University blocking a film on abortion would fit in his criteria, Scheer said no.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: During the 2004 election campaign, Scheer opposed same-sex marriage. As an individual MP, he publicly voiced his opposition in the House of Commons debate against recognizing same-sex marriage and voted in favour of a 2006 motion to reopen debate on the issue. Scheer has stated that, as leader of the Conservative caucus – where there is no consensus on the issue – he will not try to reopen the debate on same-sex marriage. In 2016, Scheer supported the removal of "traditional definition of marriage" from the conservative party policy book.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: In 2005, Scheer defended Bishop Fred Henry's statements against the legalization of same-sex marriage, stating "to think that a Catholic bishop must answer to a civil authority over matters of faith is abominable. It is abhorrent to me, to other Catholics and to every member of every faith community."


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer voted against Bill C-210, which altered the lyrics of the national anthem to a gender-neutral form. When asked about his vote, he expressed disappointment on the bill's passing in 2016 and stated that he would sing the "old version" until the law received royal assent, which was the day after his comments.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer describes himself as a feminist and advocates for a gender-diverse senior team stating, "I think the core of that is to recognize the fundamental equality between men and women."


title: Andrew Scheer

text: On January 31, 2018, Scheer was asked if he had ever acted inappropriately in the past, in which he responded by "No", and "A good friend of mine when I first got elected said nothing good happens in Ottawa after 8:00pm and I've tried to live by that rule."


title: Andrew Scheer

text: After it was revealed that the 2015 Conservative campaign team knew about sexual misconduct allegations against former Conservative MP Rick Dykstra, Scheer responded by stating he could not speak to "decisions made by past campaign teams". However, after Conservative MPs Maxime Bernier and Brad Trost called for an investigation into the party's handling of Dykstra's candidacy while Michelle Rempel criticized the party's decision, Scheer called for a third-party investigation on January 31, 2018. On February 6, 2018, Scheer declined to comment on the fate of those involved in the mishandling of the allegations against Dykstra during the 2015 election or say whether those involved remain welcome into the party.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: When asked about his stance on Canada's potential legalization of marijuana in April 2017, he said though he is not in favour of the motion, "I am very realistic, and once it's legal in a short period of time there's going to be a lot of people that work for companies that distribute it ... so we have to be very realistic as a party." During the Chicoutimi—Le Fjord by-election, Scheer stated that he is opposed to the pending legalization of marijuana and made it an issue during the campaign. In an interview with "Tout le Monde en Parle" in May 2018, Scheer admitted that he had smoked marijuana when he was younger, but reinforced his opposition to the bill, and would not rule out the possibility to re-criminalize marijuana if he wins the election. However, in October 2018, Scheer stated that the Conservatives would not re-criminalize marijuana, noting how the Conservative Party "recognize the reality," of legal cannabis, and "do not intend to go back and make marijuana illegal again."


title: Andrew Scheer

text: In the leadership race, Scheer accused Justin Trudeau of wanting to legalize heroin. He has also accused Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor on Twitter of trying to "legalize" hard drugs which he corrected to "decriminalize". Scheer is critical of safe-injection sites arguing that "the government makes it quote unquote safer to inject illicit drugs". During the 2019 election, Scheer defended Conservative ads targeted at Chinese-Canadians that falsely claimed that the Liberals were planning to legalize all drugs.


title: Andrew Scheer

text: Scheer has publicly denounced the Liberal government's decision to end its lawsuit with Omar Khadr for what was reported to be a $10.5 million settlement. Scheer argued that Khadr's compensation should have been limited to the right of repatriation, which Khadr had received in 2012.