Industry takes aim at AP ethanol investigation [View all]

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

WASHINGTON (AP) - A new Associated Press investigation, which found that ethanol hasn't lived up to some of the government's clean-energy promises, is drawing a fierce response from the ethanol industry.

In an unusual campaign, ethanol producers, corn growers and its lobbying and public relations firms have criticized and sought to alter the story, which was released to some outlets earlier and is being published online and in newspapers Tuesday.

Their efforts, which began one week before the AP project was being published and broadcast, included distributing fill-in-the-blank letters to newspapers editors that call the AP's report "rife with errors." Industry officials emailed newspapers and other media, referring to the AP's report as a "smear," "hatchet job" and "more dumpster fire than journalism."

"We find it to be just flabbergasting. There is probably more truth in this week's National Enquirer than AP's story," said Geoff Cooper, vice president of research and analysis for the Renewable Fuels Association in a press call with reporters Monday criticizing the investigation.

FULL story at link.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20131112/DAA0TCE83.html

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In this July 26, 2013, photo, a motorist fills up with gasoline containing ethanol in Des Moines. When President George W. Bush signed a law in 2007 requiring oil companies to add billions of gallons of ethanol to their gasoline each year, he predicted it would make the country "stronger, cleaner and more secure." But the ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)