Increased ethanol mandates could worsen fuel prices? Biofuels crowd doesn’t care. Ethanol is not about fuel. It’s a commodity price support program for a favored class. US is the world’s largest oil & gas producer; ethanol is a rounding error. Ethanol math has never penciled out.

IOWA DEFEATS ILLINOIS! No, not March Madness; public waterways for recreation. Iowa defines a "navigable stream" as any stream that can float a vessel carrying one or more persons for six months in one out of every ten years. If you can canoe it, you can enjoy it. Meanwhile in Illinois...

Me, when I’m out doing environmental terrorism

I'm shocked—SHOCKED—that the CO2 pipeline has nothing to do with climate solutions and Summit has now seamlessly pivoted to using CO2 from ethanol to pump more oil. Cashing in on tax credits either way. Just one more layer of the ethanol scam. Article by @ajbeamer.bsky.social

I'm shocked—SHOCKED—that the CO2 pipeline has nothing to do with climate solutions and Summit has now seamlessly pivoted to using CO2 from ethanol to pump more oil. Cashing in on tax credits either way. Just one more layer of the ethanol scam. Article by @ajbeamer.bsky.social

Me, when I’m out doing environmental terrorism

OnlyFarms Subscribe to our cornographic website to watch land barons stuff 45% of America’s 🌽 into your gAss tank while choking out the Gulf of Mexico.

"Who will milk the cows?" The problem w these pieces is they center Trump & partisan leverage instead of examining the structural economy that created dependency on an immigrant workforce that can't say "no." As if tolerated exploitation or mass deportation are only options.

Ethanol is a fossil fuel conversion process with a plant in the middle for optics. Calling it "plant-based" fundamentally misunderstands its place in the petrochemical-fuel lifecycle. You cannot credibly claim you care about climate while boosting ethanol.

Southeast Minnesota's drinking water is poisoned by nitrate from fertilizer 8.9 million acres—15% of MN's land—is in corn. EPA issued an emergency order because drinking water in 8 counties is unsafe. MN is subsidizing the contamination of its own water. And Klobuchar wants MORE ethanol.

Even facing a global fertilizer shortage and potential food crisis, Midwest politicians have no vision for American agriculture beyond using precious resources and land to grow ethanol to burn. The senior Senator from Minnesota:

lol. Lmao even.

If you want to immediately stop invasive carp from reaching the Great Lakes through the Chicago canal, close the Brandon Road lock in Joliet. It’s faster, more effective, and cheaper than the $1 billion Corps project, which won’t be finished for a decade—even if funds are released.

The Illinois Wetlands Protection Act passed out of the House Energy and Environment Committee yesterday.

Having a Paul Ehrlich vs. Norman Borlaug debate at the exact moment the US obliterates the global supplies and trade routes of the chemical inputs necessary for high yield grain.

Maybe it was a bad idea to spend decades shielding farmers from every market signal that might have incentivized more diversified, resilient systems less dependent on imported chemical inputs.

The real degrowthers are in charge

All it takes for climate deniers to get religion is to give them $85/ton in carbon credits. Midwest climate strategy: grow corn, make ethanol, capture CO2, pipe to North Dakota, use it to extract more oil. The tentacles of the ethanol scam reach out further... via @theswinerepublic.bsky.social

Where on earth is all this blowing soil coming from? Certainly can’t be from the fields of America’s Original Conservationists™️ and Greatest Stewards of the Land™️

President Donald Trump's administration might be trying to allow coal plant operators to keep dumping toxic ash contaminating water throughout the Midwest and Southeast. Illinois just flexed and ordered the owner of a porous, ash-filled Joliet quarry to do better. More from Christiana Freitag:

Y'all got any more of that bailout?

Gonna need another $20 billion "bridge payment" to get us through to next week's $20 billion "bridge payment."

Can this be a solution?

A NYT piece lamenting that young farmers can’t afford land somehow never mentions some of the largest drivers of inflated land prices: RFS and ethanol, crop insurance socialization, or the tax treatment that makes farmland a passive income vehicle for non-farming heirs.

Land prices are high largely b/c subsidies are baked in and farmers + nonoperating landowners don't sell farmland b/c of tax provisions that heavily favor keeping the farm in the family - this has created substantial generational wealth for the haves and huge barriers to entry for the have nots 2/

E15 is just a starting point. If we go straight to E20 or even E25, we could probably bring down gas prices from 7.86/gallon to 7.83/gallon. Tremendous savings for the American consumer. And simultaneously serves as a stimulus to America's auto repair shops.

Ag's version of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Particularly dispiriting to see people being concerned about defunding conservation programs when those programs fund largely ineffective or worse practices, like manure biodigesters.

I prefer my idea

I gotta say that I look forward to big ag Streisand effect-ing @theswinerepublic.bsky.social ‘s candidacy to Iowa Ag Secretary - after all it’s how they got the candidacy to happen in the first place.

When the new Gulf Dead Zone measurements come out and it’s smaller because no one could afford fertilizer, ag will declare: “See? Voluntary conservation works! No need to regulate farmers."

I want my I want my I want my IRG

leland palmer in the black lodge

If you want to immediately end the threat of invasive carp getting into the Great Lakes through the Chicago canal, close the lock at Brandon Road. It’s more immediate, more effective, and cheaper than the $1 billion Corps project that won’t be complete for a decade. @GovWhitmer

Does closing the Strait of Hormuz to fertilizer shipping count as an “edge of field” best management practice that will help us reduce fertilizer pollution in America’s rivers?

The utter hypocrisy from the Corn and Soybean Industrial Complex as they pocket yet another multi-billion dollar bailout, on top of all crop insurance subsidies and federal mandates to buy their product. And yet they have the gall to whine about federal solar incentives.

US Rep Mike Bost (R-IL) & the Farm Bureau want to limit federal subsidies for solar projects on farmland. "I'm not telling a person they can't do what they want with their property, but I do not believe we should be subsidizing them." Ok Mike, now do ethanol and crop insurance.

The Department of War never goes to "war."

Little Fog on the Prairie

You can argue local, diversified food production is less efficient, and that the cheapest way to feed 8 billion is a fully globalized, industrial system dependent on imported chemical inputs. But it’s hard to argue that system isn’t inherently fragile given unstable geopolitics.

"These companies have made billions and trillions of dollars on our data. Then they exploit our labor forces, exploit our water and energy, and then put all the debt and all the cleanup onto taxpayers."

“They have declared war on us... "We're not at war right now" No one. And I mean NO ONE believes this shit. You can support or oppose bombing Iran, but this is just pure Orwellian garbage out of the mouth of Johnson.

MA(Hg)A

Yes. I worked for the seed companies, and later helped conduct the tests in farmers' fields. It is all true. This is just one of the reasons that chemical companies holding all the seed patents is one of the worst things to happen in agriculture in the last 50 years. #BANNEONICS

Totally unrelated: Did you know almost 100% of corn planted is pre-treated with neonicotinoid insecticides? Did you know neonicotinoid seed treatments aren't regulated by the federal pesticide law? Did you know most studies (even from ag schools!) show little yield benefit from neonic treatments?

Wow, Big Ag just coming out and saying that Austin is based.

You can argue local, diversified food production is less efficient, and that the cheapest way to feed 8 billion is a fully globalized, industrial system dependent on chemical inputs. But it’s hard to argue that system isn’t inherently fragile given unstable geopolitics.

Joliet plans the largest data center in Illinois—on top of an aquifer running dry after 150 years of pumping. The data center will use groundwater for now, then switch to drinkable Lake Michigan water in 2030. Illinois has no statewide permitting system for large water users.

I’m already tired of the “kinetic” euphemism.