his new evidence-based moment in time? Dave about reaching out to a fresh horse To help step up and take on maybe the challenge of this century when it comes to the transportation sector That's a great question and it could be due to the pain in my neck Uh, but I am that's not me. No, it's not not read I I'm not sure after 45 years of this that I think we have I think your analogy was outstanding Um, I think the groundhog day movie is exactly what we've been living through And you know in my mind, we've got three branches of government We've got the congress which has spoken a lot of us went through those wars for 20 years And frankly we won we beat the oil industry the laws on the books We have the president and his agencies and as you said That's not working Certainly, it's not working with EPA those guys have been there for over 32 years In an arbor and they're dug in We have one other branch of government and that's the courts And I'm not saying it's easy. I know that that's a tough row But the law is clear the legislative history is clear It's a mandatory set of provisions We have some pretty smart folks here listening in that are that are getting ready to go to war. So My view would be we take the court of public opinion, which everybody here is right about We got to mobilize that build it up as best we can But we need to go into the other court And that's where we have some equilibrium. In other words, we lawyer up. They lawyer up You have depositions you go under oath And at least we have there a chance for a fact-based outcome.  They're not doing their job So bro as you put the gasoline gate study together And you talked about the analogy with the tobacco industry and the smoking gun Did you look at any of the strategies and tactics that were deployed by the anti smoking Stakeholder community that they used to go up against a similar entrenched major industry that was Incapable to be moved in other ways but prior to that Yes, it was the surgeon general's report Which was you know a government analysis that came out and said hey That's killing you and it needs to be labeled as such And and that started that campaign It was a relentless campaign to save lives and we're in the same one We coined you know the true cost of oil the true cost of oil and you know We were going to write a book about the true cost of oil That we just changed we just did a pivot because all the commercials to see on tv It's the real cost of tobacco And people understand that Before the tobacco industry got sued Cigarettes were three dollars a pack They're twelve dollars a pack Because that price That healthcare price tag is now in the product And it should be the same thing So it's a relentless information campaign And Dave and I get in this all the time I have high hope for consumers in the public They wear their seatbelts most people don't text I mean there's lots of things that you know man and women have evolved And it's because of education Why haven't they been educated about gasoline and in burl? I'd make one other point there though The real breakthrough on the tobacco settlement case Was the paralegal person I don't know if it was male or female That taped the documents to its body So we could get out of the office the building and evade The patent search Patent search and and that provided the ability of the people that were trying to get Tobacco on the run to go into the court and prove the case It was a it was a combination event I'm surprised with the revolving door with oil going in and now a lot of loyal EPA workers going out That at some point there is going to be a whistleblower There is going to be something that comes forth that says you know This evidence and this the length of time three decades is entirely too long And in the end it has to be personal and I have to ask you for an amendment to my slides I've got one more It's the filter from my new CPAP machine And I forgot I wasn't I was supposed to change it every two weeks and I left it in there for a month mainly because I didn't know where it was I took it out I was appalled It was black I mean it really put a chill down my spine because I know why it's black This is in my house in my bed And I live right here And it and it really it scared me so you know this is personal it is tobacco It's about saving jobs lives and money everybody Can hear this message and understand it and they don't even have to read They just have to hear it enough to believe it On that point. I think we need to wrap up and move on to our next panel I hope this was informative as we build the evidence case And now what I think we need to reflect on is do we have the will to act? So please join me in thanking our panel members for their input today And we have saved the best for last Doug's Doug's returning to the stage with reg modeling And we'll hear a perspective that we Have talked about but not in an informed way all day long Which is what about the auto industry? and reg modeling has been at the center of The action in the auto industry for his career and Doug will draw it out of it. No, it's not quite dropped on mike. But we're not done yet, but Well, thanks read real pleasure for me to sort of see we get some discussion on What we said is sort of most important part is where do we put this stuff? And that's really where the accounting Comes through the emissions are gauged and that's uh That's the consumer issue. I mean it's it's the cars. I mean it really comes down to the cars So uh reg modeling has a 40 year career with chrysler We're just delighted that he came in for this. He's been a Great advisor to several of our groups 25 25 and ernie's Ag auto ethanol group my group clean fuels development coalition reg's retired but continues to be a Advisor in many ways and and certainly he and I talk about these issues all the time But we thought it was uh very important reg has a technical background in engineering legal background in law Again 40 years. I met him during the and I was a young pup and the clean air act was just starting But uh very fortunate to have you engaged in the ethanol end of things now and Able to get you to say some things you couldn't necessarily say we knew where the chrysler So that's the good news But we do want to talk about that and I thought maybe you could just free will a little bit reg on You know, we all think it's just so easy. We make the stuff. We know the benefits. Let's just put in cars Why aren't cars using it? Why don't you do it? But all of the issues that you you know better than anybody Whether you like them or not the legal ramifications the studies that have to be done the body of evidence Things that we might consider anecdotal particularly out in the countryside where we're running fuel and say hey garden breakdown Must be fine. There's a little bit more to it than that And so we're trying to navigate through that but at the same time For some of this action as you've told me many times put the fuel out there get it out there And if automakers see the fuel out there, they'll they'll see the trend that's behind it But let's just start if we could with some of the things we've discussed over the last couple days You're outlined but some of the thoughts that that from an auto perspective as you're watching us on the fuel perspective Say, all right. This is what we would need to happen and these are the the obvious obstacles. So let me turn it back to you Sure, I appreciate being here. This has been a wonderful day. I think This section is I hope we're going to sort of tie in where how does the auto industry fit in with this? But this is all fuels Discussion today about aromatics and fuel what the implications are Had been well laid out. I think a lot of people can make a lot of use with the information that came out here So this I'm just going to try and knit some Let's call it some factoids together and then hopefully we'll get through this quickly enough So if you have some questions, we can brought it out to where you wish to have some questions answered first off there is a fellow and uh, my team when I was at Croiser had a A little placard up in his office for the whole time he was with the group And I quoted an unnamed oil CEO said something along the lines that the duty of the auto industry Is the plan to use the product that we give them and that for And that's what you see today. They're they're out there and of that sausage that we call gasoline as a concoction that they use to As you sell the Rockefeller, that's how he got rid of the a lot of product He didn't know what to do with it became a part of this product. We call gasoline So how important is that composition of that fuel? In today's fuel pole I recall the the test fuel island at Price I'm going to speak maybe it was some price of references, but let's be clear. I'm not speaking for any company I'm speaking on the basis of experience. I've had with in the auto industry. I think these opinions Although they're mine. I believe for me that they're substantiatable Through a lot of publicly available information So anyway, the fuel test fuel island at quicer or park Contained something just short of 30 different fuels Uh, that wasn't because there are 20 30 years fuel specs That's because the variety of fuel across the united states and some other countries in the world Very so much. You had to select A representative fuel package So once you design a powertrain that powertrain could be tested to make sure that the vehicle Didn't hiccup on some particular formulation Because the ramifications are that particular Customer or customer group would come back So it become a warranty and have them from build up a recall type of situation. So The breadth of test fuels is very broad And the desire on a part of the auto companies is to narrow that down if they can get down to one They'd be perfect Because in that one they could optimize the performance of those powertrains Where right now they have to broaden it out to accommodate the varying parameters of the many fuels So the that's where the goal becomes In a discussion the debate of What about that ffv in a vehicle using e85 and e10? They were under the realm of Continuing tightening of a fuel economy or co2 emission requirements That that noose is starting to get pretty firm and the wiggle room that they Indeed had For many years where the test parameters will allow them to float within the test results pretty nicely They're running out of room to wiggle. So the tighter the fuel spec the better they can meet standards in the future And then they in this case I think they would then make a choice as to what combustion regime they wish to use And they can use some more aggressive combustion regimes like high High compression engines The Wrinkle this year is with epa poised to back off the obama era requirements Isn't this sort of The positions started nullified First out just a personal observation The obama era requirements were never in place. The second phase of the program was only a recommendation And it was a recommendation the execution of the recommendation was to be based on a Study that epa was to conduct and that's what the fight was about as we transition between obama and trump Were the accusation was that the obama administration hustled out The results the analysis before it was really fully baked. So Then that the reason for backing off is only to reset on the basis of facts that the trump administration feels are now In place, but the the bigger issue is is that really going to happen? Yeah, maybe sort of but Please notice that the rest of the world has been playing catch up with the united states standards United States and europe for quite a while Where it was the united states of europe, japan and maybe a couple of others Outliers it's now Regulations covering something like 70 percent or more of the world's auto park Saudi arabia for Pete's sake has fuel economy standards now. They're pretty darn strict So the rest of the world trend is set And if the united states standards backs off somewhat from what we had a couple years ago We'll just be out of sync with everybody else for a while I'm very confident that at the end of the day The united states will not be an outlier And the rest at only during the interim the rest of the world including china would be the one thriving The performance specs for the vehicles that the car companies in fact build Well, okay, then what about that electric vehicle thing and we're going to world's moving to electric vehicles quickly We saw a slide here. It said the epa just wait for the electric vehicles I agree with the statement that was made if uh if we get to you know, even 100 of the vehicles on a new vehicles being produced Uh by 2030 Our electric is still going to take 20 years after that for the whole car park to change over That's uh, that's a real dreamy position. I think I've seen Many studies recently And all of them fall way short of 50 and most of them fall in a neighborhood of maybe 10 to 20 percent of the total car park being electric By 2050 Which tells you you got to have something else if the world is moving towards lower carbon emissions from transportation That tells me you can't leave the current stinky fuel on the road And hope to get there you got to do something with the fuel to give the current car park and the new vehicles in the next 2030 years a chance of reducing emissions and a chance of reaching some much lower carbon threshold so That that just says a new fuel is necessary now For the car makers to start planning for the next few years to get those cars on the road that will occupy the car park of the next by 2050 So what's that technology? High compression Sort of period There's variants on that and we can talk about a lot of details that people think about and talk about but high compression is really the target uh and that too was mentioned earlier the of gasoline of the early days needed something to Have any not characteristics and that became tetrothelete that became mtbe now it's uh Aromatics and ethanol but with the octane up, which is a key thing The vehicles can be designed with higher compression with a known Good high octane number in place well controlled in a marketplace the efficiency in the engine can go up pretty dramatically How difficult is that? It also depends on who you're talking to It's not It's more it's a couple of things it's one it's uh the DOE testing that has been mentioned the Department of Energy of In their national labs. It's underway for a lot of reasons for direction by the car industry and many others What they're doing is getting current vehicles and they're Modifying the pistons to give them a better or higher compression Then testing the vehicles with a modified controller usually provided by the car company So that tells you where it's at you know the heads may need to be redone the pistons need to be redone And a controller with new carburetor or calibration needs to be put in place uh fuel systems are Another thing that people keep talking about maybe and those uh, but today's fuel systems are the result of an evolution from Zero ethanol gas lanes e zero we now call it Through e 10 that transition took what 12 13 years between about 2000 2000 13 or 14 And the car companies got serious about Firming up the performance of the fuel system about mid 2000s were The elastomers throughout the systems all got modified to be tolerant of increased ethanol how much ethanol don't know but one thing I can say that With great sincerity the elastomer companies that all the companies share weren't going to come up short So I don't think they stopped at 15 and a half percent 10 a half or 10 15 and a half percent I think they went way beyond that just to make sure they had lots of head room And didn't have to modify their formulations again how much We got that's we'll talk about the e 30 test programs in a minute All right, so how difficult is to put this in production how these things are already in production folks that's in europe europe already has a 98 ron or 95 ron a 95 average Octane fuels in place That's where mercedes gets the absolute 100 assurance that octane matters They know they already designed their product in europe for it and they have to dumb them down to get to the united states and use our less than optimized gasoline But the the technologies are well known The modification parameters are well known In production probably and most if not all companies in the world just not for the product here in the united states So if the fuel was there the transition could occur as quickly as the companies can provide tooling Enough to produce the volume necessary to produce product united states That is not an overnight situation That is a modification testing of tooling certification So that that's a multi-year process, but it is not Not a difficult one. It just costs money and time The money and time piece reflects in another Oh, then the vehicle one one point there's one comment that gets made Fairly often that's the engines have to be our product has to be hardened and that's going to take time Um That too is a fairly clear Target now these are under giving you know fairly straightforward pieces and they're probably smaller Things that to be brought in also, but that term hardening Does predominantly aim at the metallurgy of valves and valve seats so To modify those it does take engineering takes tooling takes testing But once it's done the car companies are not going to make two engines Not if they run high volumes of these things because it costs money to run two Different products in this inventory and we're moving around the world So typically a company will make the modification to an engine platform And that would be their 100 production run. So the engine then would be capable Of being compatible with the high octane fuel provided it has the right calibration in its computer Uh, the calibration in a computer is not insignificant Uh, the artists that do those jobs are Not plentiful. They are probably some of the highly most highly valued people in the industry And they're uh, they don't just crank them up Off the engineering product engineer production line. They they need to be trained over years with good experience so that That segment of the engineering team is uh highly prized valuable and not plentiful so to Try to make a switch When a company argues that that uh, it takes time It's usually in the time to process the testing necessary to get the calibrations done Again that and then when you look at a whole product line A company that really wants to put something in Can drop it into a product in i'll call out a number of let's say three years a known known of Fairly easy since the system requires tooling and testing and certification But to put it through a whole power train family within a product within a company's vehicles That could take that could take a long time that could take those six ten years at least If many times something you want to put in production it even takes longer But let's just for this conversation here. Let's use six to ten years to turn over Introduction of some product like this so at this point Now if uh, if you're getting a sense for for where this goes Yeah, the car companies already sort of know how to make this thing. They made FFB's They put these things into Of brazil for p.c. You know we're using 27. That's not brazil So don't you already have it in production and if you can do it in brazil, can't you do it here? Two big considerations are one is brazil is a pretty big car market on its own and they're very protective of their in-country business. They Work pretty hard not as obvious as some countries may but they work pretty hard about keeping others out I heard today they have 38 car companies building product in brazil Yeah, and they like to keep it just that way so Most of in my observation most of the world's companies unless they don't build down there at all They'll bring If they don't build down there at all, they'll bring some product in but that's not going to be I'm going to say High volume or they might team up with a company that does business there And bring in bring their product in that way That's where he mentioned this morning that there might be I think If I hear heard it right now about some of the neighborhood about 10 15 or so 20 percent Of the vehicles aren't ffvs. Well, that's right because those are products probably made For another market outside of brazil And brought into the country that they don't control very well, but that's that's the product that is designed and made there Maybe a design brought in let's say from the united states and there will be tooled there engine built there And that product there would be designed to be certified there there and It would be made for an in-country product using a an e 27 product Those are not necessarily exported and very rarely exported here to the states Make it and use it locally as a real good part of car companies Sometimes power trains are brought in from out of the country And in brazil what happens when that happens most of the time The product is brought in It is recertified in brazil by brazil Company employees just because the country likes it that way That's at many times the car the car is modified Maybe in this case to put in a different controller to be compatible with the Ethnol product. So what does that mean to why can't we do it any everywhere because it's designed for a specific market and it wasn't Designed tested here. So what at least would have to happen Is the whole testing and certification process would have to be run here And if that's the case it's a resource issue Not only with the car companies but with epa in california because they have limited resources also So it's a very least a long term timing problem to get the product shifted. So that it's not that it can't be done It's in the difficulty of getting the product approved and then certified for sale in this country in the country to some degree this the E30 testing program, which is that was isn't that life outlaw flony of epa showed up and said you can't do this You got no kidding It's a no legal fuel and there's a provision in the cleaner acts says you cannot Modify a certified product. I mean the product's been certified is against federal law For you as a customer to modify that vehicle So now you take it to a commercial setting and somebody walked in said i'll modify your vehicle for tell me a number And epa knows where those people are and epa does whenever they find extra time on their hands They go out and chase down those guys, especially the ones that are good because that way the word gets out faster if it was just somebody, you know Joe bob in the his back shop a backdoor shop doing one or two vehicles for his buddies They're not going to care but a fellow like the one that was pointed out here today It's obviously got a following And when when they walked into his shop a lot of people heard about that So that epa likes bang for a buck like the irs, you know, they're not going to necessarily go after Any one of us, but they're going to go after somebody big with a big tax bill to make a headline Right. So the same thing with epa chasing down the of the engine modifiers So the illegal fuel a little legal operation, but also Note They walked away I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this But isn't that sort of curious and doesn't that tell you something that maybe they do know They have a sense of the pulse on this and maybe it's something that They figured they shouldn't be hammering on too hard The issue With a competitive with can you use e 30 e 25? I don't care what a number is but the number in vehicles and how far back are new vehicles It's in testing the car makers The question is how come you guys just don't warrant the vehicle for e 25 and be done with it and Well, because the vehicles of the past were not tested Simple as that It's not like they don't agree with everybody It's simply that they do not have the test information in hand. It says that the vehicle is compatible Oh, but there's all this test information.  So these things take millions of dollars in years And the well very disciplined and result gathering is such The relatively anecdotal approach of going out and putting vehicles into a community's fuel in a community's vehicles Is is really good stuff But it's not going to be robust enough to convince the car company to take the risk That that product going to be able to enter the field on a nationwide basis Running this fuel And run the risk of somebody or some percentage of vehicles turning on mills that they can't fix Because that becomes a big time warranty And at worst it becomes to a diligent of Class action attorney which of which there are many around They would love to find something like that where the car company said I don't know what the test result would be But I approved the use of that fuel Didn't have a thing break up and then they go into court and say mr. Engineer. What did you on what basis did you approve that? We had no basis.  All right, so why don't you do it now for your current product? One the the fuel that's being requested isn't illegal fuel The best way to fix that is to get EPA to declare illegal fuel by setting up a test fuel Well, yeah, but why don't you just do it for this and I want that bring EPA along Not a bad idea. It's not a bad idea if this were the only request Remotely similar to this that a car company might get But even on the fuel thing it's not going to be just one somebody's going to say e15 e20 e25 e30 e27 for piece sake Uh, then it's going to be uh, what about this thing? I'm a jig For a traffic stoplight detection that you can put on your autonomous Vehicle that right now is not legal either Or what about name name some other invention that might pop up that somebody thinks is a great idea It's a resource simply a resource issue And even though it might appear to be a good idea feel like a good idea It takes something more to make that happen So in this case it's in some fashion We need to get EPA to say the new fuel looks like this And whether it's 94 95 fran or if it's 98 or 100 Get them to say that and once they say here's a fuel that can be Tested you can use in a fuel economy testing And put it in place and you get you know five stations in kansas to put this stuff in a tank Does it would be available for the car company to use? I am absolutely convinced that if the epa said 98 ron e25 fuel we approve that and here's the spec Um, and somebody put that into a tank someplace The car companies would use it because they can take the fuel economy benefit Now they will argue At least going in that g has got to be generally available for all the customers that want it Let's have that discussion later Let's have that discussion later because if they can get a fuel economy benefit by using that fuel My bet is they would grab on to it And if the fuel is priced right and you know the market's going to pick it up They'll take advantage of it and run with it. So but that's a discussion I think we need to have in a broader audience and just put the gauntlet down to say about what So how long would it take to put this in? You guys folks know that First off where we've already said that Need for the fuel is there And that's the united states worldwide It's a it's a big need and it's going to be around for Our families are all the way through our grandkids at least Out many many years. So people are going to make good living off of this It's going to be a long time thing in the market. So the need for the fuel is there We know what it looks like Name a number high octane And we know that Corn is available to provide that product now in the volume that can be used now And again, I'm pointing we've done this review looking at e eight at e 25 Uh, and how how fast can that be ramped up? I can't supply all the vehicles that would want it now. Well If I go with the car our car company will say I'll have a product certified to do something that they'll make it like a 22 23 model your product And our estimation is that clearly there's enough fuel Potential to put in a market in volume to satisfy all the new vehicles that would be produced in that model year Will it be evenly distributed? Yeah, the infrastructure is coming in too folks The underground tank stuff is supposed to be done the only question is Is is all that equipment certified to the requirements that are on the books for them to perform against now Understand what i'm saying the stuff that's in the ground Is supposed to be capable of supporting an e 100 product Whether it does or not is subject to records keeping that has been a bit weak up until now, but the anecdotal information we have shows that People who are going out and trying to convert their stations to use the 25 e 30 product Are finding that most of this stuff is done or if it needs a modification It's an inexpensive switch. So the infrastructure and also by 2022 Above ground equipment needs to be Chip card Readable read ship cards and the tank the new pumps are being produced with that capability are all being certified to an e 40 product so We estimate that just on normal turnovers can be at least 40 percent of the pumps in the country will be E 25 e 40 capable, which is far more gasoline is necessary to supply all the new cars and the So the infrastructure is there So the only thing is missing now is where is epa? So back to i think the fundamental bottom line here is epa do your job For all the reasons you guys mentioned i won't double down on those This is all the same ones, but the information is available to them the products available The will would be there if they were uh, they Called out of fuel specification and And recognized the value of ethanol as an oxygen enhancer in current day gasoline well great stuff bridge lots of Lots of Great progression of thought there are just some things that are jotting down That we've either talked about in the past or you just came in an idea, but When was it? You know you talk about the fuel spec and how important that is for unity Recall that i know you would that the world fuels charter idea But what happened try to remind me what happened to that? That was in that blur of the clean air act and that movement that that whole time period where we were Doing so much with fuels for the audience There was an effort to to establish sort of a single formula that included oxygen I believe it was a cap at the time mtb hadn't gone bad yet So they preferred mtbe, but it was a recognition that oxygen Brought you the oxygen that benefits plus octane and it was that whole effort by the auto industry and Refiners everybody else say look let's have one formula and that's a heck of an idea that As you just alluded to is hurting us right now What what happened to that and is that something that could be brought back because you know Refiners and automakers That's actually a good one. Doug Something that I think it would be worth worth asking now that people are interested in Better formulations above what has been in the past The the worldwide fuel charter is A living document It is being used by the oil industry and the car manufacturers the world's car manufacturers To describe of the the proper matching of fuel formulation with vehicle technology level And the vehicle technology level is being set at Emissions standards levels, so you know european one tier one two three four five maybe six Now and the u.s. Standards tier one two three Then the fuels that are necessary to necessary to make those vehicles perform at those levels The last one I recall Calls for an e10 product And again the world's car makers agree that they will Match the technology in a country provided the country provides gets the fuel in there at the right level So looking at the next fuel Could be time to get that discussion going Couple of things just them throwing things back as I you know as you've got me thinking and I jotted down some things And I hope we get some discussion from the audience, but Another issue that We're working on I'm not sure it came up earlier today, but Is this whole concept that since e10 is the is the base cert fuel now that we would argue that it's There is an argument Boyd and grazed me at this argument very effectively Um that the substantially similar law now has no no cap if 10% is in there and you've approved 10% ethanol We have certified on that that the burden of proof is on epa to show that higher blends Actually degrade emissions or cause problems again with your legal background in addition to your regulatory background How does that argument hit you because he again? This is not a something we thought about over over drinks I mean Boyd and has has made a very A compelling case for this and we put it in front of epa and of course they haven't answered us Well, I this is pretty simple. I agree I've spent some time with that with Boyd and his staff Really enjoy the The thought process they went through and the proofs that they've come into And it appears from that analysis. That's really clear. The epa's got themselves backed into a pretty Black corner that they need to approve higher blends if asked to do that But the big challenges are they Not going to they're in How how does the community get the epa to Not be able to reason a lot of of that kind of a corner Well, another thing you mentioned is um And so obvious to me I use it in most of my presentations I don't know if it still exists, but you were you headed up us car Which was ford christler and gm the three domestics But I have some old charts from that where that the zethnal volume went up And each time it went up a little tweak of compression and at the end of it And I think dave had it in his presentation. We were at seven percent Efficiency that's a whopping increase given that we think the new safe rule is going to be calling for one 1.5 and I think even obama was calling for five So the question is what why why didn't in your opinion now that you're out of it the autos Now jump on that a little bit more the whole octane argument Just didn't you know Just didn't quite quite risen it came and went fast. It seemed to me that there was a There's always a technical recognition of that, but I can recall the rfa conference That was the whole theme of the conference a couple of years ago We see some some of the autofolks out talking about and it's like no never mind we've shifted gears and and That's seven percent or anywhere in that range three four five seven percent that the whopping increase Would minor changes to your cars and and I would argue it slows down the the electric push So it's curious why you think that petered out so fast I'll take the five six seven percent thing as a given whether it's that number or not Let's not get into that but that is as a fundamental for this discussion. That's a good number For for this discussion at that time That's in a generally before The current president came in and Pulled back the standards the standards for at that point were moving up like at five percent a year and the What got the car manufacturers to agree that the goal setting could be Properly appropriately set at a to Set at the rate that they were Set for going out to 2025 Was Two things one was a very important one that we call it the mid-term review and nitsa had a Let's call it statutory requirement that they can only set standards out five years. So that was a nice break point So the nitsa standards never did go into place, which are the fuel economy rules And EPA standards, they could not make them final beyond five years So they became recommendations, but the ramp rate was five percent And that mid-term review was going to assess is industry capable of doing it and the biggest question That was targeted The biggest question was are the customers accepting the technology in the marketplace at the rate that needs to be introduced I'll bet you never heard that one because EPA sort of forgot that one but the the second Part of that was Well, the technology had to be Well, the second part of it was Nobody knew What the technology package was going to be out past about 2020 2022 at that back in the 2011 and 12 when these things were negotiated and that that's People say, well, yeah, your guys are smarter than that. Well The car companies don't even know how they're about price vehicles next year Let alone what technologies are going five and ten years from now so The technology packages were coming along pretty good at that time and that We were there running out of ideas so the The the technology Not being known a provision was put in to that list of regulations That allowed for the evolution of new ideas yet unknown So the adoption of credits against not understood or off cycle or some sort of packages That could come in come into play I elaborate there because the fuel component in the automaker's mind was one of those Was one that they could sort of see out there They could see if the fuel was there we could use it But I understand that if if the fuel was there we could use it The problem was they don't control fuel They needed EPA help to do that and then the industry itself was actually putting it in But Nonetheless, it was that's one idea And let's say it's good for five percent. That was one year worth of Step for An ancient family or two that they could put in on a yearly basis So it was far from the total Technology package necessary. So what they did is they said that this is part of that, you know You need to allow us the opportunity to do more And what happened with the new EPA is that that those optional packages have been Held back quite a bit So they don't want to be arguing for one At the risk of oh, you got that one. So we're not going to do any more So they wanted to have a assurance that they were going to have access to the full future of unknown Technology packages. So it's not that they wouldn't Accept it or wouldn't push for it Once the fuel was in place just one the fuels was not in place And if the fuel didn't show up they'd have to go some other way So they weren't going to waste political chits on something they had no certainty of seeing in the market Well, that's the dilemma though. We're in I mean we make ethanol When we put it out, we can use it in a number of different ways including as e 30 or 85 or e 10 or anything else But to go, you know All in on that and try to get e 30 in in lots of places Then the obvious question is, you know, I hope the cars can handle it So that's where this I don't want to call it civil disobedience But you know this sort of sort of go ahead and use it anyway and and it ties in with the testing And uh, governor gnome, uh, you know, we had hoped to be in here today, but Larry pierce alluded to this earlier, you know in Nebraska the dakotas some other places They're they're going past what what jim and dug talked about earlier in south dakota and they're going to state fleet tests So that's way above anecdotal. It's way above what they're doing It's closer to data that can maybe lead to widespread acceptance But I just would always argue that, you know, because when we show me the fuel We know some people I won't name and who always challenges us at at our ag auto ethanol meetings But I can't show up at the fuel and say, sorry, nobody can use it. So there's got to be some Cooperation that's why the world fuel charter or something like that where the autos were working closer with the with the ethanol community And sort of going down this road together rather than saying you go first No, you go first and that's a real problem for us Well, maybe fuels world fuels charters a nice place to Be able to start getting the right parties together, but that process is a bit Duller-gent and along But it's not not we shouldn't do that. That's actually a good idea Getting epa to not in the direction of if you bring it bring a product in and test it On a new fuel that will give you a certificate. That's the sort of bottom line and What we've seen in the last couple of years is reluctance on the car companies to be first They seem to have a great fear at this point of not getting the right answer and the discussion we saw today were epa's reluctance or Opposition to putting fuel in the market might be a real a real challenge I think Maybe part of a company's Reason for not not taking the first step but that discussion folks In my opinion, we've not you know, we've we've heard those dug you and I've heard it Companies bounce back at us and then what we do is we get hit by it and we sort of drop the conversation I think we need to get some small group Together and say let's let's start this conversation again and say on the basis Would you guys use it? What would it look like if you saw it and can we get and who can actually take that request to epa and Who's willing to make that shot? We have not wrestled that one to the ground One more thing read before I just want to close this thought project. So okay. So how do you get the autos a little more engaged? One of the things we talked about on you know the other day and and I just want to talk about for a minute here is credits You know, I think the idea of credits to automakers Is just a left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouth the e85 program was Called a loophole by the environmental community because there was no Set way to demonstrate that these ffvs are actually using Using the ethanol and yet they were getting credits. I get that and but I think the ethanol industry was asleep at the switch to fix that it was fixable There were some things we talked about that could measure These and but by that time it was too late But in even our our other meetings since then there's been a lot of discussion about well If the objective is to not use oil and you got credits at 85 percent Why wouldn't you get credits at 30 and if you could prorate those 30 is actually a better way to use it than the 85 from an efficiency standpoint. So You've told me many times that the other guys would take the credits, but they're not going to fight for them I'm not sure that's I'm not sure we couldn't turn that around to go and say look You guys are going to tweak your cars to get maximum performance maximum emission reductions maximum mileage And meet the objectives of calf the original cafe, which was not use oil And we can provide you with what you need there. So come in and And at least smile a nod and say that credits would be helpful, but that's another thing Like octane. I feel like they've just stepped off of so I'm not going to give up on that And I think it's an extremely defensible Position to ask for credits if you want me to not use oil I cannot use oil But I want to I have to do something for it and I think that's that's a road we could go down But let me take a break and read has a question or comment Reg you made a very compelling case why the auto companies want to have A standard fuel that they are going to Build toward and and that suggests a process of collaboration toward agreement on a single spec fuel My worry is that the least common denominator Nature of that process will lead to A fuel standard that the oil companies are happy with because they can still use aromatics At their maximum value that would be the worst possible outcome from our perspective in terms of public health and climate change How do we avoid that outcome? But that's a huge question probably much bigger than we have time left to resolve So I'll just give a short shot The refiners and GM Largely came and supported sort of subtly by Ford Came up with that solution and that was a 95 Ron E 10 Proposal and that was linked to pulling off Removing or eliminating the RFS And that had so many Negatives like one they can make it while the current that is current premium is what it is Uh, so you wouldn't have to make any change and then a lot of people who counted as necessary lose the RFS So that that was in the place to start Uh And the people who are making that argument Right now that appears to me there's a lot of people afraid of the refiners and for some reason don't want to go in Separate from them, but they can't shoulder up to them because they don't agree with their position So that leaves everybody outside the door. I think some group folks They've got to resolve you got to leave the refiners outside the door and go and talk to the policy makers The car companies deep down don't really care About the RFS and they really don't care so much about the number just as long as that number is Bigger than it currently is and very narrowly scoped They settled for 95 because of a couple of reasons that we won't get into right now But if if it came out as 98 They'd be happy. That's that's better higher is better So I don't think we and I think the argument pretty much is settled not died it's just gone away right now to your point dog because Uh safe rules under debate, uh the huge fight between california and trump administration Uh the separation of the companies gm honda for Uh for a safe rule whether to involve california The political fight right now is uh potentially so hot or at least simmering Strongly that they really have to let that die before I go away a little bit Then we can get back into this fuels discussion Now The problem with that is that sort of says you gotta wait for the safe rule which then may or may not have a fuels component Again, we got to talk about the strategy and such That the fuel component does not have to be in the safe road be really convenient But doesn't have to be And or is anybody talking about the fuel economy component or fuel component in the current safe rule? I just don't know because I've been outside of that discussion with you guys, so I think that demands a much Deeper discussion maybe another couple hours sometimes some place but Great topic though. That's that's uh in the next steps discussion That we should bring that up as far as we got to hold that discussion to actually frame it up if nothing else Steve any question would you share that mic please? Uh read you've mentioned this a couple times and and a few times I've even defended the auto industry because you know you look at all the challenges the auto industry faces I mean in tier three comments the autos are very positive on higher octane Um, we have a lot of issues at the EPA both for the auto industry and the ethanol industry I mean look at the r factor and the fact that if you can't fix an error at EPA, how do you fix policy? We have a letter by EPA in 1997 that we can't take more than a three percent advantage on octane between regular and premium We've got you know, so the EPA hasn't updated their testing protocol yet for for the oams And we've had moves we have EPA coming out by march with the anti backsliding study on on ethanol and we know that's not going to be positive How do we how do we get? More traction at EPA if EPA Clearly doesn't even listen to the auto industry And uh, you know to me that's that's always amazing just the r factor alone is an example Where you clearly point it out a error in EPA's calculation And I don't know if they were just mad because someone pointed out an error that they just refuse to even go to their own recommendations So how do we fix EPA? That's been a discussion of the day, you know, how do we get EPA to do their job? You know, maybe we that's better left to the next segment to look at the things to do But that is that is a challenge, but I In one one thing it might I would use to start like the next segment would be Whatever we result to do to set our ladder to get to the next level We got to start with a real firm pot of pots a real firm Assured attention grabber that they then get stuck to and can't release And they get them to grab the next one, but we one thing we can't do Is lay out the whole litany of things we got to have fixed because They'll just flat out ignore us because they'll know nobody else is listening to that whole list So we got to get them in the room so they can't get out And then what I think will happen I'm very convinced will happen if they get the right direction from the horse Is they will then have to fix those things to make the their conclusion come up, right? So That's anyway, that's we'll leave it at then Well, we talked about maybe just having a round robin discussion here rather than people physically changing changing spots and Oh, that's true. So And we're going to leave reg and Doug's still in charge so everything's fine here We're going to bring Dave Hallberg back up and Steckl Carol or And uh, we'll just continue the discussion among ourselves for everybody's entertainment Ernie, Ernie Shea may join us. He's on a call and Doug and uh, Doug and Jim and or And if we need to pull on up pull on the chair Yeah, well, you guys aren't on camera. We need you. Oh come on. We're recording Carol. We need you. We're recording it come on I was going to just say that but I wanted to make sure I didn't say it wrong But well, I thought you know after a tremendous Series of presentations and great discussion and most of everybody up here was a speaker or presenter of some type It's interesting that that we wound up sort of where we started the epa You know void in this morning and and tim worth this morning Both experience and working with epa, but as I said this morning It was a much more positive experience when they did it back around the time of the clean air act But it's funny how almost the last word comes right back around again to epa So I don't want to throw two general a question out that we just said how do we get epa to change? But I think we heard some ideas engaging moms for clean air and groups like that I think this awareness as borough pointed out You know some people still do read we've got to get them to see and read this information The the book that we did on that everybody hope gets a copy of the mobile source air toxics It's a fact book and nine tenths of that book is the health impact It's only at the very end where we say by the way we have a solution Carol was one of the reviewers for that and helped me put that together But a lot of research went into that but we got to get that information out But let me but there's a lot of other things. There's auto issues. There's ag issues There's everything else So I'll start with you in at the end. I mean from a whatever standpoint, but obviously an ag You know if you were king for a day, you know What's what's what's something that we cannot in a two general of a sense, but what is something we can do? You know what's what's something we can do to move? We're a little bit stuck on the ethanol side of rfs e15 slash rvp, you know Okay, so what is something we could do in this town with epa congress get congress to move epa whatever it is We need to do that that we could Everybody think about this. What's one thing you you'd like to see done? And then we can determine if it's doable And that's a great question. You know, I think with this issue You know, it's our challenge and our opportunity right is to coalition build because there's a lot of different Aspects that talk about when you're talking about the benefits of ethanol depending on who you're talking to I certainly think that the health aspect is one that resonates With everyone and so I think that we need to really focus on Embracing a lot of these health groups and trying to talk to them and educate them About why it makes sense to them and bring in a lot of the urban folks into this too I mean, I think Doug Sompke's presentation on that Really hit home because you know, it's great if we're we're talking to ourselves in agriculture And we all agree to it But we have to talk to the rest of the country too and so I think really digging a little bit deeper on the health aspects Will really get us where we need to go Carol I I agree about the need to really kind of zero in on the health aspects It's been disappointing that it hasn't been easier to Attract people with regard to that in terms of thinking about the kind of the professional public health Organizations, but I think that there hasn't been enough of a concerted effort and all this really takes a lot of time But I think that needs to happen and I also wonder about the health insurance industry because so many of these costs and everything come right back to thinking about insurance and And that one thing I have been thinking a little bit about is is You know and raised the whole thing in terms of building broader coalitions. Well, I think while that's important to do nationally I think it's also important to do within states And to look at you know, because if we had folks going to their respective governors or or to their opinion leaders or you know or to And I think that media could be very very important here in terms of a horse that we also need Is somebody to tell the story In a really, you know, like in a couple credible, you know, like media outlets You know so that it's really being talked about and finding ways to really talk about it And I have also in terms of thinking about health insurance, you know, you've got state blue cross blue shield plans So what I'm wondering too is whether it is worth trying to At least take a stab at engaging some of them and seeing whether there is any any interest I'll stop Dave, I know what you want to do, but And you can sue Dave only wants to do one one thing, but it's no, I mean it's and that's a really important compliment Yeah, that's maybe the only thing Well, I liked Ernie's Ernie Shea's analogy to Bill Murray and Groundhog Day Most of us have been doing this so we need Bill Murray Bill Murray would be a good shot. Let's call him up. Most of us have been doing this for 30 years As Reg Modlin said, you can line up about 12 different issues and confuse everyone I think we need Turn this from a shotgun game And a broader conversation to a sniper shot I think that sniper shot is the Achilles heel of the oil industry, which is BTX and aromatics We watched them try to defend that in the 1990 Clean Air Act and all their ads and they spent millions and they lost huge on the floor. That's because you cannot explain that So instead of having to go back again and try another 20 or 30 years in Groundhog Day I think we need to focus on a that point of vulnerability And b how do we get there from here? And yes, I am going to say the courts because you're not going to get there with Congress Ain't going to happen. We can talk to them. We can educate them more But they are never going to break out of their gridlock on an issue like this And it doesn't look like EPA is ever going to budge So we got to budge them And that's where the court of public opinion helps complement whatever court we go into And we've got the data We've got to get the attorneys, we've got to get the industry allied behind us so the resources get applied Doug, I don't want to answer your own question, but from an ag standpoint from a state standpoint, you're doing a lot of stuff state levels We heard we heard Tim Ehrth this morning say, you know, you guys need to get a governor You know, so we are doing that but you know, so I'll kind of Yeah, I mean the question with that We've been trying to do all that. I mean, first of all You know, when I started looking at this several years ago I've seen the things that were tried and that were successful But you couldn't do them today I mean in this town it just can't be done today and We should learn from the past The one thing as a farmer You don't want to repeat the same problem twice because you're not going to be around very long What Dave has just said, I agree wholeheartedly. I think The patriots that led in this fight ahead of me Have done a great job. Have like he's spent his whole life doing this Ori Swayze another one spent his whole life doing this But we really haven't moved the ball So far, I mean Jim and his group are doing a great job showing how it should be done Um, Christy Gnome has stepped up to the plate to to take it to a state level um Minnesota's uh tim waltz has done the same thing We really if you're going to do it by the the state thing you got to do at least two or three more states at least And then you might only be a regional thing And how long is that going to take I can tell you right now farmers don't have that long We are up against the fence right now Matter of fact, while you've seen the numbers and we've got 20 higher bankruptcies today than we had Since 2012 we've got Income of farms predicted to be down just released Yesterday 11% less income this next year for farmers than this year That's not counting the expenses are going to be higher because these damn tariffs I mean, we're getting we're getting pinched and we can no longer take it in.  I'm not gonna take it anymore. That is hell. I'm not sure we are and I agree with Dave. I mean I just don't think that there's any other choice and I'm really frustrated with my commodity group friends Because they put us in this box they they fought and fought to build their commodity And where's it gotten them? We've we depend on trade And look what that got us We're trying to do the same thing with ethanol and that's going to take us to the same place Um Look what brazil is doing. I mean, I read the article that uh, your brother steve Dave wrote the Brazilians are coming Now if that don't wake you up when you read something like that and so we're gonna wait And wait for them to come I don't think so My farmers in south dakota aren't gonna take that my friends and national farmers. You're sure as hell don't want to see that Um, we just don't have any place to turn anymore in agriculture. We just don't Um, we thought ethanol was the best thing going since sliced bread We still believe it could be But we've run up against the likes of the oil companies that are holding us back and epa is infiltrated with them That's the way. I see it. I mean The letters that I wrote To chris grendler Where's he? Where's he now?   That's what should happen They should be scared to death and as farmers We need to stand up and farmers are on these commodity groups.  That's not right I mean I thought that this was a great event the information that was shared here today was wonderful It was very enlightening to me. I feel like what i'm doing is worth something And my members need to hear this They want to know this too and they they really appreciate the fact that there's others out there that want to help I agree that the the health care thing because I mean again, it's personal I've lost my mom to brain cancer I've lost friends to cancer and we all know what we're doing here Why are we letting it slip by as burl said You know everything else we're we lock our kids and heck I was raising a car that you didn't even strap yourself in and what you know, you just wandered around the car I made it My mom or my wife's Traverse has three car seats in it because she babysits our grandkids I can't even get in the back seat without taking one of them out to get in the back seat Uh, and that's a great thing, right? I mean, it's good. We're safe. There's no no problems there But yet we're putting this fuel in a car that we don't even know. I mean I heard Here's what a seed salesman told me one time at a at a seed event Field day This this is brian hefty for those of you that know the hefty boys he said He's talking about the the roundup case in california and he said you think that's bad He said waiting. Do you see what's in your diesel fuel or in your in your gas? He said You'd wear a hazmat suit. You wouldn't let your kids even in the car when you fill it up This is coming from A guy that's very reputable in the egg industry so Why aren't people like that fighting with us? Why why don't why don't they jump in if that's Truly how they feel I think it's for the same reason I think it's because they already know that the past If anything's like the future like the past is We are not going to get there I really think as I said before the only way we get there is through this safe rule and Works it works, but don't it. No That's why I see it Reg we touched on a lot of it, but I want to come down the line here again, you know, you've heard all the different All the different perspectives of this thing, but again in short terms said, okay, let's get to work tomorrow What's what's something we could really focus on? You know in the short term and start on I think message-wise The health angle is one that I haven't heard used strongly before And 202 l calls very directly for health or damage to a nutrition control device I reflect with the guys on another example of Some of that actually did work at one point. You know get the lead out was one thing In the 90s, there was a considerable study of the constituents of gasoline It was it was a very joint effort between the oil and the car industry the Detroit three at that time 10-year program constituents There were many reports that came out of that and one one report in particular But it came up with at the end of the day was A pile of data is so big you couldn't really measure it and So compelling that the engineers just loved it, but then they recognized that The difficulty with that is there was just so much information. It just overwhelmed People who were going to look at it. So there was an effort if you're going to do one thing to gassing as a result of that study What would it be and it was get the sulfur out This the sulfur report was published in 1993 and the sulfur and diesel was directed out in early 2000, right? Then we said well, what about the gasoline? Oh, well Need more proof of the Correlation So the industry's got together and did that and eventually sulfur got taken out of gasoline in the late 2000s The point is that that did work at the point to that point the administrator carol browner was of of Wide-eyed full-blown advocate of getting sulfur out of fuel and we were on the stump Together as epa in a car industry to convince people to do that And it went along with provisions protect the health and then also protect the functionality of the mission control device I'm sort of long with you know, the legal action is Sort of next phase if people won't listen to it. I just i'm i continue to be baffled why epa won't pick up demands on that And but maybe carol you mentioned something this morning. I thought was it was an attention getter for me. It was along the lines of You haven't seen or haven't heard of I think clear deliveries of message to the hill on the topic and That too some of us is a bit frustrating as we think here. We've been working on messaging and stuff and if that If that message if your message plus is that precise What are we missing? Who do we get the message to who do we get this health message to? Then who needs to carry it? I guess that's where i'm at But I think we've got membership at a and all through this organization that Would be willing and maybe we're just all going into shotgun on the what we're saying I Is it okay to respond? Okay. Um, I would I would just say that You know based upon the conversations that I've been in The level of knowledge is very very low if not non-existent Part of it is because a lot of staff Have pretty broad portfolios. There's also a huge turnover on staff. There's been a huge turnover in in members You know and so it's not really anybody's priority So in terms of thinking about leadership and here's where I don't know in terms of thinking about Whether there's any hope in terms of of Again somebody banging the drum It as far as somebody who's on a committee of jurisdiction And one of the things that I you know because I I'm actually going to go back and make some Some inquiries about this too because there's also Climate legislation that is moving forward or it's being talked about a lot And therefore because this also ties in That I really want to go and talk to a couple senior committee people About this and to see what You know to start to feel that out a little bit more but But I think that there's got to be much stronger harder outreach That that has to happen Because people all talk like they haven't heard anything from anybody on this stuff I want to come back to you on that but but read I think everything everybody said is fine I don't have any quarrels with anything that people have suggested But I want to come back to where I started out today, which is One of the sort of threshold difficulties of this issue is it's so darn complicated It's so hard to explain it involves so many disciplines It is a really difficult story to tell and and so I have sort of two Pathways out of that thicket one of them is internal to washington and one of them is external to washington I think the story internal to washington Is that we have become too dependent on a priesthood of experts Who are Hold all the knowledge to themselves and act on their own without any Democratic or congressional or even administrative review. They are Situated in Ann Arbor. They pronounce Their view of the world and everybody bows down in a basis now I hate to tell stories on myself but A great idea that was an abject failure of mine Was a few years ago during the obama administration when we had friends in the white house And we had friends At doe we had friends at USDA We had friends at dot And we thought we ought to have friends at epa But epa refuses to cooperate with anybody And so we said to the white house Let's have an interagency process You know, you have the this expertise in the national laboratories You have agencies dedicated to different issues here bring in nihs bring in the whole team Let's not just let Two guys in an arbor decide the future of this issue well turf arises and The administrator of epa put her foot down and said this shall not go forward and It didn't But it's still a good idea And the problem is still there and who knows maybe this administration would be more sympathetic To having different voices. I mean certainly the white house has not been able to solve this issue Maybe it would be sympathetic to the idea that there may be one more source of wisdom that isn't Situated solely at epa So that that's that could be through a congressional directive. It could be through Lobby in the white house. There there are different ways that could happen So that's the internal that's sort of how do you stall this problem of how complicated is by bringing in a bunch of Different experts and try to reach a consensus I don't think that works outside of Washington. This is too hard a story to tell So I think what we have to say is very similar to the the the problem I've dealt with for the last 20 years on climate change. That's too darn complicated to explain anybody either And what has worked on climate change was kids saying i'm scared What else do you need to say to a politician? I'm scared. What are you doing about it? Or i'm scared for my kids or my grandkids. What are you doing about it? And that's the exact same message we have here. It's not complicated Kids are being poisoned by the gasoline that we're burning in our cars. Do something about it Stop the poison Well, I've gone with you it isn't that complicated. There's bad stuff and good stuff I was going to come back to you but you sort of touched on your edge, but you know Again too general of a question, but you know, why hasn't this resonated? I wrote an article with Dave Vandegren and biofuels digest after that oil that houston oil spill In the harbor that was it. I forget the numbers now. It's been a while, but staggering numbers large numbers oil industries on camera cnn said well, it's just reformat Reference benzene reformat. It was just a different word for exactly what we're talking about that should have had people up in arms I mean because that houston harbor then feeds to all kinds of things So it's it's it's very uh Frustrated us that this stuff hasn't resonated. I mean we put out a lot of stuff Thanks to mr. Sopke here through cfdc We launched something that and I hope people will visit on our website as a safe gasoline campaign We have compiled a bazillion things that are should scare people out of their boots And they don't so I don't know how we do it other than You know look at the attention of this this young Greta got you know on climate change things like that But that houston thing was a local. It's like, you know tip used to sell politics are local whole sore health effects And you know people all over this country are in cancer wards And so we've got to figure out how to do that and then that was we all know from working here that drives things here But I just was staggered at at how that houston thing and there are many more examples. I just won But how that sort of came when yeah Bazillion gallons of benzene in our water and as borough pointed out in our research and our other project EPAs I mean api is on record is saying the safe safe threshold for benzene is zero There is no such thing So anyway, I think I think we just got to get a keep pounding that and then For those who might sort of doubt then you're bringing in these ancillary benefits of agriculture of energy security of economic development but It's just shocking to me.  Can I can I jump into one point there? I think the the houston Case is again a lot like climate change is well. I don't live there. What do I care? You know It's a bad Story, but most people react to what's affecting them. Yeah, it was and I think I think what's compelling about this pH story is This does not have a geographic boundary. This is happening in new york and burbank as well as in Omaha. So What moves politicians Are motivated passionate people who come into their offices and tell personal stories Now they can be corn growers. That's fine in those districts. They can be mothers in the Bronx. That's fine, but we have to get Individuals with compelling personal narratives to say what are you doing to protect me from this hazard? Well, we did that steve there is the icm sponsored that Did the young fella who was in one of your race one of the various things you guys sponsored? I had suffered directly from Yeah, you know, so I mean, yeah, so I don't I don't disagree with that at all but I guess we just got to do a better job of it because While you're right about that Yeah, I don't live in houston, but if you can turn that out and say Well, that's in your gas too That you know, did you just say it's not geographical? We're not limited to that. It's in my gas. It's not just in houston No, it's in your it's in all gas. We're all affected by it So I think, you know, we've got to figure out a way But I look to the hill. I agree with dave alberg entirely. We've had, you know, we're not going to get any legislation But they are a bully pulpit. They can beat up an epa. They can hold hearings. They can make noise I still come back to and you spend a lot of time on the hill You know, we had someone from senator marky's office here today. I have personally You know Gone after them because I know that when marky was in the house and chaired the health subcommittee on the house side He knows the stuff inside out. I talked to mature retirement thing carol. Yeah He's he's interested. He really was genuinely interested where you need someone like that to say And he's not even an ethanol guy. We don't need him to be an ethanol guy He just needs to say I forgot we we got to get this stuff out of gasoline. What are the alternatives? I'm when he learns of them then become an ethanol guy. So I I think there's a balance between the media the hill states the governors, you know And and oh and and absolutely there's no question while that's going on That will strengthen the lawsuit boydin has said that for years. That's a built-in Communicator to built in public relations platform to direct constantly update people on the lawsuit And you're always informing people then of why we're suing him. So there's it can all tie together, but It takes resources and time and people, you know, Doug carol you touched on it Because we've had this problem Getting into rounds his office or staying in front of rounds his office of the staff turnover That it's not like in the old days where there were someone would be a staffer for 15 years That you're lucky. They're there for 15 months And so then you lose that ground that you thought you were establishing and now you got to start over from zero And I really thought that we might have a better chance with rounds To pose some questions to epa for the simple fact that his wife is dealing with cancer today So, I mean Talked while making it personal And I just for whatever reason it's not reaching him For whatever reason Anything from our audience any words of wisdom or concerns questions? We've covered a lot of grounds today Did you know that in 1925 Alice Hamilton wrote an article in the American Journal of Public Health Saying if you're gonna try to keep lead out of gasoline you really shouldn't have You know put benzene in it also benzene is worse Sorry in 1925 Alice Hamilton of Harvard University Wrote an article in the American Journal of Public Health saying that benzene was worse than lead in gasoline Because it was carcinogenic. It was very clear even at the time. So I just offer that maybe history can have a role in this too But I think You know, there's there's a long A lot of ground to recover I'll just say in the history that That's a strong point to and we use this in a lot going all the way back to clean air Act stuff in the clean act amendments when we were working on that in the late 80s We knew it then and we really am done thing about it. I mean that's that's the day of Holberg's point about 202 well I mean we have we have quotes from physicians from Legal experts and others and say we got to get this stuff out of gasoline. Well, we didn't and in the sera club Uh had one of the greatest lines when they went after him on for not enforcing the toxics provision And they created this benzene averaging scheme that they said how could a provision that requires the removal of toxics Result in no removal at all all that it was average it out into the pool from rfg areas And it was kind of this the shell game of moving benzene around so But but but the point at your point is a good one that We've known this for a long time and it makes it even that much more compelling How many bazillion gallons of gasoline have been we've been exposed to since then so I'm gonna come back to the science for just a minute and then see if anyone wants to comment You know an epa came out the e15 rule last summer They also said e15 over e10 raised vocs Raised knocks raised p.m And I don't think the ethanol industry or people supporting the ethanol really realized the science already Put up against us Because we all know ethanol burns cleaner. I mean that's not a that's not a disagreement But they're using the argument that ethanol and like ethanol's cooling effect makes gasoline burn worse And I think we have to understand their strategy to how they say we're worse So that we can give the right questions I was in an arbor at epa this week And I had one of my slides had the denver results when denver's using their models That shows e0 is better than e10 and they're not disagreeing with denver's results Of course, I argued they're not using real world fuels when they do this So I think it's it's the ethanol industry or the people that want to support a cleaner fuel We have to have the right people that understand our fuel understand ethanol from emissions and a performance side Because it's not just EPA it's not just crc enrall has just done another study Giving the cooling effect of ethanol a possibility of being ypm goes up And I'm looking at the study and I'm honored to just kick somebody at enrall for doing that study So, you know, we have some science against this and I think we got to so that when someone goes to epa We're giving them the right questions to ask So there's certain questions you can ask epa. They're not going to want to answer So steve, I think the epa should be forced to ask those questions under oath Okay When they can't be cute Okay, and they have to say yes or no And and suffer the consequences you and I've talked about this a lot There is nobody in the world that understands the moves model better than you You have studied this for five years and you are brilliant at it Okay, you can spend the next 20 years again groundhog day Sitting down with those guys and their successors and they will never admit That they concocted a model that is not only wrong, but it's idiotic never Okay But if you force them into the court of law and you present the case What read presented today? Which they themselves buried in their documents Have got up and admitted That their moves model is bust That they were absolutely wrong on every count and on top of that their contractor Said how can you leave 86 of the bad stuff on the cutting floor? What that says is it goes back to the law How can a law where congress says reduced to the greatest degree achievable? Allow them to concoct in collusion with the oil industry A model that they themselves admit is defective Right with manipulated fuel samples And they can continue to use that model To tell people that E0 is cleaner than e10 That's not just stupid. That should be illegal Right and my point is We need the right people to support the legal to support the lawyers So you can go in and just absolutely with the right questions. You need you call that expert witnesses Hello, thank you. My name is Shetha. I'll spare you my last name Um, I haven't been here all day, but I've been tuning in remotely and so apologies if what I ask you You might have already covered, but it's something Reed. You were just talking about so you were saying how to Get the attention of politicians. You need to you need that child in the room saying that they're scared and to draw attention to it I actually work with a group. We don't have time That's largely credited with launching gredith unberg turning that picture making it viral on their u.s. Representative here in the states I also am a behavioral scientist. So I study in my colleague study What is what is that gap between perception of risk and the reality of the risk? And why haven't we been able to succeed in closing that gap? What I would argue is that even though it's not in your backyard We have been really effective in identifying the communication and that's what it is It's a communication challenge. You're never going to be able to make every risk present for a particular population But if you can communicate that experience in a way that makes it immediate for them and not so far away Then you can begin to come overcome people's perceptions And so there's an entire field of study around this and I'm wondering to what extent we've talked about it And if it's being applied, um, we're applying it in everything We're doing with the social media network with we don't have time But this might be some of the missing component here that I'd love to talk about some more We may have to hire you. Um I think you're absolutely right One of yeah, you're at that's that's great points and absolutely right one of the challenges we have just wearing my ethanol hat is we have other sort of daily fires at our feet that have the ethanol industry has and I've been in it from the beginning but and Has a the ability to really mobilize and have a single message and be very effective at it because for years and years We had a tax exemption. We had to all defend the tax exemption Then we had you know oxygen we had to defend that then we had the rfs and we had so we're pretty good about You know kind of kind of getting together these last five years or so the renewable fuel standard Which has been the basis for a lot of ethanol use has been under constant attack So I think it's I think it's fair to say it's you know Some of us have broken off and Jeff Cooper said me taste I'm really glad you guys are laser focused on on the health aspect But they're fighting the so so we haven't been able to bring our message together So it's a it's an unfortunate but unique situation we're in where Every time we think things have settled down. Okay, let's go do something positive and And you know somebody attacks something that we have to go defend the north wall You know kind of things so if we can ever get past that and frankly a lot of us have Made the argument that maybe if we could get this we don't need a renewable fuel standard We're already don't have a subsidy anymore So we could really be free of this which is which is dragging us down but those are good points and I think at some point if we could mobilize our financial resources and tap into that sort of really high level Communications expertise. I think it would it would do as well And I would love to connect with you to talk about this further Just one other thing that I always think is kind of amazing about this issue too is that when you think about All of the work that has gone into clean air on the power sector side And how strong That whole thing on the health side everything has been It's really incredible to think when you juxtapose that to all of these health impacts On the fuel side in transportation. It's kind of mind-boggling. Well, these studies Come out and they show spikes in autism spikes and cancer rates spikes in urban areas Well, you don't have power plants in urban areas. You've got cars that are trapped in buildings You know, I mean sometimes it's just it's frustrating that someone doesn't ask the obvious questions like that Or you guys looking at fuels too and to so many these studies aren't but it also goes back to EPA in the particulates And not recognizing the nano and the microbes saying look we control diesel and we control power plants We're good. We we did pm. No, there's a whole family of pm under that that, you know, but they don't even know about So I agree. It's a totally disproportionate prioritization of how you control pollution and Well, it's dysfunctional I'm jonathan hers. I work with carol at esi I want to reinforce your comment about working with other organizations And observe I think like responding to scientific studies very, you know precisely There's Maybe it's not fair, but there's a little bit of a perception. Maybe that the people who produce ethanol are interested in selling ethanol and Maybe just, you know, that angle is alone is not going to Yeah, that's another reason to work with other groups, but Uh, I think one of the things that we're trying to look at is Getting people to think about this what are called the social determinants of health And it's so it's not just it's what the way that the public health people look at public health And these are the things that we can control that affect people's health And the idea is that it's it's not just, uh, you know asthma. It's it's all the various, uh, You know things that lead to deaths that we can actually respond to so one of the ideas that um, actually there's just something in the journal of american of journal the american medical association is looking at the Impacts on the social determinants of health in the budget process So that when when uh laws and regulations are evaluated, they don't just look at the cost They're actually required to look at impacts on health in the environment But it's not it's not the guidance really isn't there So the idea is how the benefits of your What your program is about is going to benefit The health side of the government As well and there are all these different groups working all these areas and they all and they do kind of add up You know under climate as well. So it's a much broader coalition and and as you say You know if you ask the question the right way People will say well, you know benzene isn't doesn't work. What does and it all it all sort of comes back together So I think I think that's a really that's like that would be a really strong way to to purchase Well, I just said one thing and thank you for that and I agree your very first comment though um Be aware of ethanol guys bearing gifts, you know But I I would just say and we fight this fight all the time all the time. Oh, yeah We again wearing my ethanol hat, but we make no apologies for the fact that We produce a product that does all these things all these boxes that checks, you know energy security economic development All all of these things And as we said this morning was going great and it saves lives it replaces a toxic carcinogen. So I understand exactly what you're saying We've got to get over that initial hump that you know that you're not that there's not You know another shoe to drop or that you're not holding something behind your back But it is a clean product and we're not going to you know, we're not going to not talk about that So we've got to overcome some of that perception I think jeff cooper's presentation here this morning to the environmental community should that was terrific Yeah, that really was the super up to date and and we were aware of these numbers But you know, it was just an excellent presentation, but we just got to get over that I met at your retirement party. We burl and I had a couple of exchanges with a couple different people I should have another retirement party obviously Well, don't bring the guys that we met because unless we want to move we need more time to win them over But they were like same thing.  So but those are good points, but Well, look, I think Unless there's anything burning, I think we're on the homestretch here. We have a reception at five If it opens at five fifteen at five fifteen at the Occidental And we can give you directions to that but to give everybody a chance to catch up in their email and go to the restroom and unfortunately get your raincoat on and Get your raincoat on your umbrella out, but I know I speak for all the organizers of this dug and in the farmers union and ESI and my group clean fields development coalition. Thank you read and senator worth for giving us this terrific venue and Just a lot of great information. You can never have too much great information I hope we can snip at this and bottle it and do some different things with it But all these presentations will be available For those of you who stayed the whole day. Thank you very much And um with that, I think we yeah and our audience on the air. Yes, we'll live forever ever On the air so So again, thanks I was just going to mention to that the live cast that this will be on EESI's website. So that's EESI dot org or g. Okay. Okay. Okay with that. I uh, you should bang a gavel or something read your