But ethanol is a home-grown resource made from readily replaceable agricultural feedstocks such as corn. Ethanol offers substantial environmental benefits. Ethanol contains 35 percent oxygen, which makes gasoline burn more cleanly. That's why the Clean Air Act requires the use of oxygenated gasoline to improve air quality in the nation's most polluted cities. But unlike the petroleum-based oxygenate MTBE, which is fouling drinking water supplies from Maine to California and posing substantial public health risks, ethanol is nontoxic and biodegradable.
Ethanol is affordable and abundant.
And ethanol supplies are the most plentiful in 20 years. The ethanol industry has broken monthly production records every month this year and is poised to set an all-time record for annual production. Ethanol is good for farmers and rural America. In addition, the production of value-added ethanol has sparked new capital investment and economic development in rural communities across America. Nearly one million farmers are owner-investors in cooperative, local ethanol production facilities.