Big Oil's Not So Smart Campaign

  • Wednesday, 21 October 2015 00:00

Riding on the coattails of a science-fiction based study by the University of Tennessee last week, Smarter Fuel Future this week launched an advertising campaign to continue its attack on the ethanol industry. 

This advertising campaign centers on two major myths that were created and continue to be propagated by the oil industry : ethanol raises food prices and is harmful to the environment. 

The University of Tennessee "study" and the current advertising campaign seem to be part of an orchestrated offensive by Big Oil to affect the EPA's final rule on the 2014, 2015 and 2016 RFS, which is due to be released by Nov 30. 

What's really interesting about this campaign - and all previous campaigns -  are Big Oil's tactics. If Big Oil truly believed its product (oil) was better than ethanol, why not launch a campaign on the greatness that is oil. 

Perhaps Big Oil could tell us how oil doesn't raise food prices. Nevermind that recent pesky UN FAO report that shows food prices have risen and fallen in tandem with crude oil prices.

Why create lies about how harmful ethanol is to the environment when Big Oil could just extol on the environmental benefits of fracking or drilling in the Canadian tar sands? Big Oil has always been about the environment. All those oil spills was Big Oil's way of helping nature weed out the weak inhabitants of the ocean.

And while we're at it, why not bring up the economical benefits Big Oil brings to the table, like how when Big Oil makes record profits, so does everyone else. No one's going to remember that Big Oil's record profits had something to do with record prices at the pump. 

But that's Big Oil for you. Instead of talking about the benefits of oil, it devotes its entire time spreading myths on ethanol backed by Grade A science fiction. Take a look at Smarter Fuel Future's (if there ever was a name more ironic) website and you'll find that it is entirely devoted to attacking the ethanol industry.

Why devote so much money (and time) to creating lies about ethanol? Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that profits are down in the oil industry this year and that an increase in the availability of higher ethanol blends like E15 would decrease the oil industry's market share in transportation fuel?