The ethanol industry has gone on the offensive to defend itself against an Associated Press “investigative report” that has yet to be released for publication.
Fuels America held a conference call today about the article which is embargoed until after midnight but was circulated last week on the internet. The call included Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) Vice President of Research and Analysis Geoff Cooper and Leroy Perkins, an Iowa farmer who was quoted in the AP story.
Perkins says he was contacted by AP reporters in July to talk about “the county fair, along with absentee, out-of-state state landlords and of course, water quality.” During the course of the interview, one of the reporters asked him what he thought about ethanol. “I told them I was for ethanol, I believe in it and we use it in our vehicles and equipment all the time … because it’s a product of the land,” he said. He never expected his interview would be for a “story to put down ethanol.”
Cooper and the RFA have put together a Counterpoint Fact Sheet on AP story which refutes at least 16 direct quotes from the draft article and he says industry representatives have been in touch with the news agency. “There has been some effort to get these factual inaccuracies corrected,” said Cooper. “If the story we saw that was posted last week is the same story that gets rolled out tomorrow morning, that tells us the AP just isn’t concerned about running a factual story.”
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