LETTERS: ETHANOL, BIODISEL NEED TO BE TESTED FOR FUEL BENEFITS

To the editor:

The gurus in Washington are telling us we must have stricter gas-mileage standards on the cars, SUVs and light trucks we buy. Shouldn't basic personal economics have some input here? No one wants to spend extra money on fuel, but that should be an individual decision. Can I afford to put more fuel in my SUV and have the convenience of hauling large packages or lots of grandkids?

As a farm manager, I would love to mandate that cars, SUVs and pickups must burn ethanol. Just think what that would do to increase the price of corn, and look at the reduction in air pollution we'd gain. Or how about requiring all large trucks and buses to burn a 20 percent soy oil-diesel mixture. I can just hear my fellow soybean and corn farmers applauding these requirements, but I don't believe most of them want the federal government to go that far.

What most corn and soybean producers really want is an opportunity to prove that a 10 percent ethanol blend and a 20 percent biodiesel fuel make economic and environmental sense. How about funding some large-scale trials with biodiesel and ethanol in our large cities and on our interstate highways?

Missouri fuel in Missouri vehicles sounds like economic progress to me. Let's tell folks in Washington to keep their little cars on the beltway and their regulatory ideas inside that beltway.

PETER C. MYERS SR.

State Representative

160th District

Sikeston, Mo.