Ethanol scores big Senate win

SENATE MAJORITY Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., is pushing the provision that would require refiners to use 5 billion gallons per year of ethanol in their gasoline by 2012, up from about 1.7 billion gallons this year.

Maybe Daschle should talk to California Governor Gray(out) Davis, who doesn't want ethanol in California, preferring to stick with MBTE as a gasoline additive...at least until 2004, by which time he might not even be governor.

Trouble is, MBTE is a proven carcenogine and stays in ground water for an annoyingly long time. Thus, Davis, a Democrat, and environmentalist, is quietly maintaining a poison in the state's gasoline supply. His preference is to have President Bush grant California a waiver from the EPA's oxygenated gasoline requirement. Bush says, "Use ethanol," a substance Democrats prefer everywhere except in California. Quick overview of everything, except Davis's signed-at-midnight 2004 extension, is right here.

Politics, the art of talking out of both sides of the mouth.