During a hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) was provided an opportunity to reiterate talking points promoting corn-based ethanol as prepared by the Renewable Fuel Association. A claimed reduction in greenhouse gases following addition of ethanol to gasoline is in part used to justify the Renewable Fuel Standard. 

During February EGG-NEWS reported on consortia applying for permits to pipe carbon dioxide generated by ethanol plants in Iowa to locations in Illinois and North Dakota to be sequestered in soil in those states.  The article questioned what the ethanol industry was currently doing to capture carbon dioxide, absent a pipeline system that was the subject of the recent proposal. 

John Phipps, writing in Ag Web has determined that only 43 out of 200 ethanol plants currently in operation capture carbon dioxide released during the fermentation of corn.  Accepting his figure that each ethanol plant on average generates 150,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from 157 plants amounts to 23.6 million metric tons of the greenhouse gas.  This figure is supported by the permit applications for the Iowa pipelines claiming that the three projects would sequester between 27 and 39 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. The ethanol industry is apparently sequestering the truth relating to carbon dioxide release and water use --erealities that should be recognized and resolved.