It seems there are many people not actively engaged in agriculture who have a lot of opinions regarding how Main Street America can grow and prosper.  The growing influence of organizations outside the mainstream continues to stifle economic opportunities for farmers and local communities.

The influence of California-based organizations such as the Sierra Club and Twin Cities-based organizations such as the Land Stewardship Project, which are outside the mainstream, continue to threaten the ethanol sector.

It is time to shine a spotlight on the monied out-of-state opponents of the ethanol industry who are now launching false and baseless attacks about the ethanol industry in Minnesota and other Midwestern states.  Radical organizations such as these are taking aim at the farmers and Main Street businesses that help fuel America’s energy future.  They continue to oppose further development of corn-based ethanol and lament that Americans may be “stuck with corn ethanol forever.”

Rather than working toward solutions, these groups use fear and innuendo to stifle growth and opportunity, including proposed carbon pipelines.  For example, the accounting firm Ernst & Young estimates that one carbon pipeline project that will traverse Iowa will generate $795 million in total state investment, $440 million in state labor income, and $74 million in state and local taxes paid.

We cannot allow anti-ethanol rhetoric to permeate the debate.