Dinneen to ethanol industry: ‘We need to show some outrage’

Ethanol Producer Magazine
By Kris Bevill June 29, 2011

Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Bob Dinneen abandoned the podium and chose to speak off the cuff during his keynote presentation delivered to attendees of the International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo on June 29 in Indianapolis. “I’m not sure that [a speech] is what we need right now,” he said. He briefly addressed the U.S. EPA’s recently finalized E15 label and complicated, ongoing ethanol policy negotiations in Washington D.C., and then focused his efforts on rallying the industry to move it forward during a difficult period.

Approximately 500 of the 2,000 or so registered attendees at this year’s annual conference are ethanol producers and one of the first questions posed to Dinneen was how the industry can continue its education efforts and battle the rampant misinformation campaigns being spread by anti-ethanol groups. Dinneen suggested that ethanol industry employees should ramp up their individual efforts to correct erroneous information and educate the general public. "We all need to correct the notion that it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than you get out of it. We need to dispel the notion that somehow we're driving the price of food while people ignore the skyrocketing prices of oil and ignore the role of speculators in commodity markets. We need to be the responsible ones and do that sort of thing,” he said. “It will be a challenge for all of us. But we need to do that. We need to show some outrage about the one-sided debate that's going on in Washington today.”

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