Group wants more choices at gas pump

In addition to “regular” and “premium,” renewable fuel advocates would like to add “domestic” and “imported” to your choices at the gas pump.

An industry group is pushing the labeling so motorists can choose whether to buy homegrown fuel rather than fuel from foreign – hostile, perhaps -- sources.

The idea has merit, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey said, who is encouraging Iowans to think about where their fuel comes from.

“The idea of labeling the origin of the product we buy is nothing new,” Northey said in a statement his office released Thursday. “Just look at the tag on your t-shirt or the label of almost anything you buy. Even cars now report what percentage of parts is domestically produced and what parts come from overseas.”

However, the president of an Iowa association of gas station operators called the idea “impossible to implement.”

“I appreciate what he's trying to do in promoting Iowa ethanol,” Dawn Carlson, president of the Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Stores of Iowa, said about Northey's comments, but “it would be a huge nightmare for retailers.”

Most Iowa gas retailers are independent, small businesses that get their fuel from multiple suppliers who depend on multiple supplier buying fuel on the spot market, Carlson explained.

The impetus for country of origin labeling (COOL) for fuel comes from Growth Energy, a groups formed by ethanol producers. According to the Energy Information Administration, 34 percent of fuel used in the United States in 2008 was produced here. The cost of importing 60 percent of the nation's fuel topped $500 billion annually.

Ethanol is America's only viable and available fuel that can be substituted for gasoline, according to Growth Energy. It's renewable, high-tech, homegrown and on the verge of innovation breakthroughs that will make it even cleaner and greener, the association said.

Northey buys E85, which contains 85 percent ethanol, whenever he can because it might be made from Iowa-grown corn and processed at one of the 40 Iowa ethanol.

“I would rather have my fuel be grown by Iowa farmers than pumped out of the ground in a foreign country,” he said. “But, when I can't buy ethanol I would prefer that my money wasn't unknowingly going to Venezuela or Iran, countries that have vast oil reserves but also have dictators that hate America,” he said.

However, tracking the source of ethanol is no easier than tracking other fuels, Carlson said.

“We can't be certain that biofuel we buy today is from Iowa company – even if we buy it from an Iowa company,” she said. “I wish we could.”

For more on the proposal, visit: www.labelmyfuel.com.