Back in 2006 I was a staffer for then-state Senator Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin). She had a particularly good day when the legislate session ended in March, and wrote about it in a column:
Good riddance to ethanol mandate
One of the most important votes in the just-completed legislative session was the vote to kill Assembly Bill 15, the ethanol mandate. When the bill came up for floor debate in the state Senate on the final day of the session, I made a successful motion to indefinitely postpone or kill the legislation.
The bill was an outright mandate. It would have forced the state to sell regular gasoline that contained 10 percent ethanol. The government should not be imposing this requirement. Legislators should not be interfering with the lives of constituents by deciding the type of fuel constituents should be required to put in their gas tanks. A purchasing decision is best left for the market and not one that should be forced upon consumers by lawmakers in Madison.
Ethanol would not be of great benefit. There is strong evidence that ethanol costs more, harms the environment and reduces gas mileage. Owners of small engines have made it clear that gasoline containing ethanol wreaks havoc.
If ethanol is so terrific and such a great bargain, then consumers and not the government would drive demand. If there is a groundswell of support among consumers clamoring for this product, I certainly have not heard it. The death of the ethanol mandate bill is a huge victory for consumers.
There’s more.
The federal government’s push for greater ethanol production, carried out in the name of saving the planet, has done great harm to the environment. What’s more, it has caused the release of far more carbon dioxide — the gas that is blamed for alleged global warming — into the atmosphere than the burning of ethanol could ever hope to save.
“The consequences are so severe that environmentalists and many scientists have now rejected corn-based ethanol as bad environmental policy,” the Associated Press wrote in a lengthy report.
The New American, November 13, 2013
Ethanol is a boondoggle. The crude oil glut has made it unnecessary from an energy conservation perspective. Meeting this year’s federal Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires refineries to produce 15 billion gallons of ethanol, will add costs at the pump. And production of corn-based ethanol generates perhaps as much carbon emissions as it saves by off-setting oil consumption, according to a 2016 Yale study.
The only purpose ethanol blending serves is to prop up farmers in politically important agricultural states such as Iowa and Ohio.
Currently, 34.5 percent of the nation’s corn harvest is used to make ethanol. An MIT Technology review found that increased ethanol production has contributed to rising prices for foods made with corn, like corn-fed meat products as well as beverages with high-fructose corn syrup.
As icing on a very unsavory cake, the Department of Energy admits gasoline with ethanol blends gets less gas mileage than non-blended fuel, meaning that drivers consume more gasoline. And any gasoline blended with more than 10 percent ethanol is corrosive to engines not specifically designed for using biofuels.
Ethanol is a bad deal. And encouraging its use is bad policy.
A Detroit News editorial, June 6, 2019
E10 is gasoline with 10% ethanol content. E15 is gasoline with 15% ethanol content.
I write because the Wisconsin BioFuels Association issued a news release today that WI Gov. Evers has joined six other Midwestern Governors on a Letter to the EPA regarding year-round E15. The Governors are inquiring about the steps necessary to implement a state-level solution to ensure E15 can be sold all year long. The Governors’ letter requests guidance from the EPA on how their states can be allowed to produce either E10 or E15 year-round.
A recent D.C. Circuit Court decision overturned the EPA’s 2019 regulation that facilitated year-round sales of E15 in conventional gasoline markets.
Other Governors that signed the letter are from Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Missouri.
Gas prices are outrageous enough. Consumers don’t need this.
This Just In... From Franklin, WI 
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Well where to begin,
The people of the state of Wisconsin never wanted him. He has been a detriment for the working class and now he has a problem with another brain function.
I never pump ethanol fuel and I am a bit concerned about the effects of it.
Ethanol fuel is the cause of fuel tanks leaking frames rotting fuel lines leaking and you being broke.
People are getting ripped off at the pump and they need to be educated.
But beings teachers dont teach, but indoctrinate their democracies it should be noted that the election of Evers was rigged.
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