Did BP and the Feds do more harm than good trying to clean up the Gulf?

BP's Gulf PR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoOfIR4Vk1o

Probably closer to the truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLzacnH3u50

and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR5ieufbcAk

and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1cXrkw9n-E

The oil's all gone, victims are fairly compensated, and the Gulf is just like how it used to be, right?

We expected this problem wouldn't go away so smoothly, and unfortunately we were proven right. BP seemed to care more about concealing their Gulf spill rather than actually cleaning it properly. Remember how they heavily relied on chemical dispersants, such as Corexit (sounds like maximum strength white-out)? Corexit is banned by many nations, but is manufactured by Ecolab in the US, so it is still open for business (most times, the burden of proof is not on the company but on environmentalists/others to prove that a substance causes harm). Other nations prefer to use oil eating microbes, but Corexit just dissolves oil globs into smaller ones (out of sight, out of mind). The hope was that sea life would digest the smaller droplets and the problem would be solved (but what happens when sea life ingests the Corexit too?). 4 years after the disaster, oil is still washing up on the Gulf Coast. So maybe some of the millions of barrels of oil were digested, but clearly a great deal was not.

So the dispersant strategy was partly ineffective, but what about the side effects? Anything that chemically separates aggregated hydrocarbons is probably not healthy for other organic matter. When Corexit was used in Valdez and the Gulf, hundreds of workers came down with respiratory issues (the chemical is sprayed out of hoses and nozzles like Agent Orange, and can be easily inhaled). Coastal residents also documented many cases of skin rashes and boils. BP and the Coast Guard did not have its cleaning crews wear any protective clothing or respirators. According to VICE, they even barred people from wearing respirators because of the negative impression.

Under the water, many studies have shown that Corexit+oil is much more toxic on some marine life than oil or Corexit alone. So the shrimping industry was heavily affected too. One business reported ~50% of shrimp exhibiting illnesses and deformities, often in the gills. They are obviously unsellable and possibly unsafe for consumption (despite the FDA quickly pronouncing Gulf seafood to be safe just 4 months after the blowout... but it takes them 10 years to declare a medicine to be safe?).

Clearly, this cautionary tale demonstrates the dangers of (1) our dependence on fossil fuels, (2) our hubris that the latest technologies will never fail and we can safely tap more challenging resource deposits in more environmentally sensitive areas, (3) the political influences of the petrochemical industry, and (4) lax/incompetent regulation. Also, a destroyed city can be rebuilt, but a decimated ecosystem may be irreversible (at least on human schedules).

BP should not only compensate victims of the blowout, but also of the "cleanup". Whoever authorized the use of Corexit at this scale (without sufficient impact study a priori and public oversight) should be fired and possibly jailed. If this isn't grounds for prohibiting a foreign company from doing business in the US (and hopefully nationalizing their assets), I don't know what is. "Corporations are people, too", but if we can drone-execute a US citizen overseas without trial, then we should be able to give companies a lifetime ban if the body of evidence is so compelling. We lock up poor minorities and throw away the key, and AFAIK they did much less harm to the US than BP so far.

News roundup

Not again... oil rig blows up in Gulf (not the same well):  
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_rig_explosion

The petrochemical money behind part of the anti-Obama, anti-Democrat tea party "movement":

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

You probably haven't heard of David & Charles Koch, but they control the 2nd largest private company in the US (Koch Industries), which is a major energy company as well as the people who brought you Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra. The Koch family has an oil legacy, and their rich father helped build refineries for the Soviet Union under Stalin. But after Koch's Russian business partners were caught up in Stalin's purges, Pappy Koch became strongly anti-communist, and one of the John Birch Society's founding members. The sons and current heirs to the empire modified those feelings into a rejection of centralized and federal government. They are hardcore libertarians and anti-environmentalists who are fundamentally devoted to declawing or dismantling the federal government (specifically taxation and environmental regulation), partly due to their financial interests in reducing pollution regulation, taxes, and fines for their businesses. This is quite hypocritical because the Kochs have also enjoyed millions in government energy subsidies, tax breaks, and no-bid contracts over the years, especially during the Bush years.

The Kochs founded the Cato institute, and one actually ran for vice president against Reagan/Bush from the right, but the ticket failed miserably (probably too extreme for 1980's America). Therefore the Kochs decided that direct political participation was not the best way to further their agenda, and think tanks can only spread a message so far, so now they are one of the biggest architects of the "tea party movement." One of the TP's major funding sources is Americans for Prosperity, which is run by the Kochs. So these mobs of grassroots, angry white people who don't like the feeling that their country is slipping away, and believe that their protests are acts of patriotism against socialist tyranny, are really just pawns of big business hoping to derail Obama's progressive agenda to keep their profits up, regardless of how the country and world suffer as a result. Of course the teabaggers are a very diverse group, from outright racists to mildly frustrated, law abiding conservatives, so it's not like the Kochs control them all. But their money and covert influence, with the complicit or fortuitous assistance of conservative media and somewhat justifiable public concern over the size and reach of government, is quietly advancing their ultra-libertarian agenda that most sub-billionaire Americans probably do not share.

How Obama can deal with the misinformation over his identity:

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/28/alter-how-obama-can-fight-the-lies.html

Krugman's article on Obama and the spill

The Gulf is one of the most productive fishing areas on the planet. Now the industry is screwed for years. Much of Gulf fishing is done by small, immigrant operations that don't have the scale to weather this disaster. If I were them, I would take truckloads of rotting seafood and dump them at BP USA's headquarters. Let's see how they like another industry shitting on their livelihood.

G was kind enough to send me a piece from Krugman about Obama and GOP criticism over his handling of the spill: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/opinion/10krugman.html.

Did you see the press conference today? I agree with Krugman that Obama has done about all he reasonably can for the spill. The government doesn't have the know-how or equipment to fix drilling disasters. I guess he could threaten BP and make them hurry up, but based on their track record, do you want to rush a reckless, accident-prone company into another mistake? Obama could have mustered up more anti-spill resources and pulled rank on BP for the cleanup though. Recruit the fishing boats, get all the booms and vacuums you can requisition. Overwhelming force to silence the critics and put people at ease, even if it's not fixing the problem 100%. Apparently 7 nations have offered us help, but we only accepted it from 2: Mexico and Norway (a nation with vast offshore drilling experience in worse waters, yet with a better safety record). But he still did much better than Bush during Katrina.

As Krugman and Obama have said, I don't know why there is such a blanket anti-government sentiment among conservatives. Reagan said government is the problem, but government is the solution (and the unique solution) for many things too. Do they really not care that America lost trillions in wealth due to de-regulation, that hundreds of people are dead due to gutted, corrupt federal inspection agencies, and that we are stuck in 2 un-winnable wars because the separation of powers failed? Bad, dysfunctional government is a problem, so why not fix it instead of weaken it more? They are sending our concept of government to a "death panel". Just because of the Toyota pedal problem, do critics say that all cars are bad and we should do away with them? You can't judge something based on its worst performance (also a critique of our penal system). And you especially can't judge when you set up something to fail beforehand for your own selfish purposes. If they don't want government, then what is their alternative? Every man for himself? We'd just be a nation of paranoid, selfish assholes stealing from and lying to each other. Is that their American dream? Is that conservatism? Freedom must go hand-in-hand with personal responsibility, as any GOP would say. But clearly personal responsibility is fallible, so who is there to enforce it but the government and rule of law?

More on the MMS:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127126854

In one case, it was reported that a MMS inspector gave his inspection form to a rep of the company being audited. He filled out the questions in pencil, and the MMS guy just wrote over in pen. Another was being recruited to a company at the very moment that he/she was auditing the company. Needless to say the company passed and he/she got a new job.

Mexican drug war

There was an interesting series on NPR about the war among drug gangs and government forces in Mexico. The most powerful cartel in the country is Sinaloa (named after their home state). Their boss "Chapo" Guzman is the most wanted drug trafficker in the world, with a $5M bounty on his head. Recently the Sinaloans have tried to bully their way into Juarez, since it is such a valuable smuggling conduit into the US. The smaller local Juarez cartel (La Linea) is fighting back of course, and the city has become the murder capitol of the world, with 6 killings per day. This prompted the US to contribute another $1.3B in anti-narco aid to Mexico, and President Calderon sent in 10,000 army troops to the city. Violence went down for a couple months, but then actually got worse than pre-army levels. Now the city looks like a Mad Max movie.

A possible explanation is that the army is taking a side. Whether due to political strategy or corruption, the Mexican military seems to be favoring the Sinaloa newcomers in Juarez. The majority of recent arrests have been La Linea members. Former police and army officers told NPR in secret that they are sure there is collaboration. Juarez cartel members recently assassinated 6 federal cops and left this tag on a nearby wall: This is what happens to officers "who ally with Chapo and all those mother- - - - - - - who support him. Signed — La Linea."

Of course this is nothing new, as law enforcement has made its services available to criminal organizations for centuries. For the right price, they stay out of their way and even make life difficult for rival gangs. But for the cops/federales to blantantly take a side is unusual. Aren't all drug pushers the enemy? US authorities shot a video of a Mexican army Humvee towing a stuck Sinaloan SUV (carrying a major pot shipment) out of the Rio Grande (unfortunately I can't find it on the web). Beats the heck out of AAA. The Mexican government dismissed the incident as Sinaloans masquerading as army, which is possible, but they could just be covering their asses.

On the other hand, the majority of overall recent anti-narco arrests has been against the Gulf-Zeta cartels in the east (FYI, the especially violent Zetas were founded by anti-drug commandos who defected for higher pay to become guns for hire, and eventually made their own drug business), who happen to be the next most powerful rivals to the Sinaloans in the west of the country. But is this bias actually a good thing? We know that drug demand in the US isn't going away any time soon, and probably never. We know that law enforcement can't really stop the production and trafficking of those drugs from Latin America northward. Most of the drug violence is due to rival gangs fighting over territory and power. If the Mexican government favors the strongest dog in the fight (and the Sinaloans happen to be relatively more professional, well liked by many Mexicans in Sinaloa, and less randomly brutal than their rivals), this may help the Sinaloans wipe out the other cartels and monopolize the Mexican drug trade. Then there would be no more drug war. The Sinaloans would then make some sort of truce with the Mexican government, and order would be restored. Sure there would still be some bloodshed, internal conflicts, and new gangs emerging that the Sinaloans would need to confront, but conditions would probably be better than what we have now.

Of course the US wouldn't like this because the same (or similar) amount of drugs, dirty money, and guns would still be crossing our mutual border, no matter how many gangs are out there. But for the Mexicans, they don't care as much. Their priorities are stopping the violence and restoring order in their country. And frankly, that's probably worth cutting a deal with the devil. The US wants the drug trade to stop in Mexico, which will never happen on our present course, and much of it is our fault. So if drugs are still moving, might as well stop the gang war and slaughter over it, so it makes sense to let the Sinaloans "win".

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126890838&ps=rs

What caused the Deepwater Horizons to sink?

Earlier AP investigations have shown that the doomed rig was allowed to operate without safety documentation required by MMS regulations for the exact disaster scenario that occurred; that the cutoff valve which failed has repeatedly broken down at other wells in the years since regulators weakened testing requirements; and that regulation is so lax that some key safety aspects on rigs are decided almost entirely by the companies doing the work.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill_inspections

L also informed me of a great "60 Minutes" interview with a Transocean (world's biggest offshore drilling company) Deepwater Horizons worker who was there during the explosion. That rig did the drilling, and another would handle the oil collection. Apparently the DH did already successfully drill the world's deepest well that I mentioned last week (4k feet water + 35k feet rock), and the current well was a "mere" 5k water + 13k rock. Much of the accident is due to BP's reckless, rushed, greedy timeline. In their haste to tap the huge Tiber reserve (since drilling cost BP $1M/day), they drilled too fast and destroyed their first well. That set them back 2 weeks (delaying the job from 21 to 42 days), showing that haste makes waste.

Regarding the blowout preventer (BOP), they ran a test 4 weeks before the accident. There is a giant rubber seal called the annular that closes around the drill pipe and essentially shuts off the well like the washer in your faucet. But during the test, a worker accidentally moved the drill pipe. So it rubbed on the annular while it was fully engaged (like driving with your parking brake engaged), which probably damaged it. Workers on the surface found chunks of rubber coming out of the well later. A damaged annular may skew pressure tests/measurements (and those tests are the main data for drillers to determine whether it's safe or not to let oil in the well), but the manager said it was "no big deal". Also there are 2 electrical control pods that connect the BOP to the surface (1 primary, 1 backup). They lost communication with 1 of them. A later investigation showed that the BOP was also leaking lubricant and had weak battery charge. But rig tests showed full functionality, so they went ahead as planned.

BP and Transocean managers were fighting over how fast to finish the job too. Drillers use a heavy metal-doped fluid nicknamed "mud" to fill the well and keep the pressurized oil from shooting up. But it needs to be removed before the oil can start to be pumped. Halliburton was paid to install a set of concrete plugs along the well to reduce the pressure without mud. One of the plugs wasn't finished yet, but BP ordered Transocean to remove the mud and get rolling. If the mud and third plug were in the well, it's quite possible that the blowout wouldn't have happened. Each of these mistakes may not have been critical, but the sum of the errors led to the catastrophe. Though the terrible part is that it was all human error and human decisions, not really technical failures. But no matter how infallible our tech gets in the future, how can you divorce human frailties from the offshore drilling equation? Laws can't be written to safeguard against every possible circumstance and bad judgment.

Despite all these concerns, they "stayed the course". Just as a crew was flown in to celebrate the rig's record of 7 years without accident, the explosion occurred. Flammable gases from the well probably leaked through the damaged annular and reached the rig, where it was sucked up by the rig's diesel electricity generators and blew them up. 11 people were incinerated and the rig sank soon after.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490348n&tag=contentMain;contentAux
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490378n&tag=contentBody;housing

More on the BP Gulf spill

http://www.newsweek.com/id/237651
http://www.newsweek.com/id/237619

Some interesting articles regarding the aftermath of the BP disaster. Incidents like the Gulf oil leak and the West Virginia mine deaths remind us of the question: how many lives and how much environmental damage are we willing to offer up on the altar of commerce and cheap energy? If we had a renewable energy economy, all of that harm could be avoided, unless a solar panel came loose in the Mojave and crushed a mouse. Unfortunately or not, very few Americans are directly affected by these industrial disasters, like the Middle East wars. So therefore it is a lot easier for the rest of us to ignore problems or even live in denial as long as the gasoline and electricity keep flowing. But although we don't see it, Alaskan fishing communities are still devastated two decades after the Valdez spill. Local ecosystems will probably never recover to pre-spill vitality, and fishing economies were decimated (suicides and domestic violence have risen significantly in those hard-hit communities too). Yet those victims have been swept under the rug, since oil is so vital to Alaska's economic survival (and provides hefty payouts and kickbacks to many in power), so Palin et al. up there are as pro-drilling as ever. Sacrifices for the "greater good", I suppose. I hope this sad narrative won't repeat in the Gulf, which is still struggling after Katrina, but I don't think their future is bright (in some cases, it has taken an entire year to finally plug a blown out well).

The recent NYC terror scare reminded us to be vigilant, and the government/law enforcement often state that we can't afford to be wrong even once - zero tolerance for terrorism. If only we could hold companies to the same standard regarding environmental harm (and we're not even talking about climate change yet, though the Kerry-Lieberman bill is sparking new discussion on the sausage making of energy reform: http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201005130900). We're petrified of Abdul the crazy Muslim bomber, even though the chances of being a victim of terrorism are at lottery levels. 9/11 was a major human and economic disaster (though smaller than the subprime bust), but after 9/11 the US has suffered much more from environmental disasters than terrorism (domestically at least). So what should we really fear? As a society, we've almost tuned out eco-disasters. Yes the Gulf spill is huge in magnitude and may well spur a (watered down) overhaul of drilling and environmental regulations. But there were at least 5 major North American energy disasters since 2000, and I doubt many of us could name them. It's one of those "oh well, what a shame" tragedies, like the problems in Africa - we're sympathetic when asked but otherwise it's barely on our radar. I hope we don't become like the Iraqis, where a daily car bomb isn't even news anymore. Are WV and the Gulf just the price we pay to keep the economy humming? We only get mad when gas exceeds $4/gallon or our block gets a blackout.

If we don't care about the millions of dead avian and sea life, what about the human costs? The Texas City refinery explosion that I previously mentioned killed 15 and injured 180, so imagine the ripple effects for that community. Toxic fumes displaced 43,000 other shelter-seekers. It could happen in the dozens of US communities near refineries. BP was fined tens of millions, but it was a slap on the wrist considering the magnitude of the crime. And it's no accident that the federal investigation was weak at best. The EPA lawyers were chomping at the bit for a home run case, but the Justice Department suppressed their efforts or watered down the case to the point of futility. BP's strategy to stunt the investigation after their Alaska pipeline leak was creative: they responded to the federal subpoena by spamming the EPA with 62M pages of documents, fully aware that the government only had 3 or 4 employees on the case. They got off nearly Scot free. Last year, BP spent almost $16M on Washington lobbying (a record for them), and like Goldman Sachs, they want a return on their investment. In the past, BP has made consultants out of major government players: Leon Panetta (current CIA director), George Mitchell (Obama's special envoy to the Middle East), Christine Todd Whitman (Bush's EPA chief), and Tom Daschle (former House majority leader and Dancing with the Stars contestant). What do you think they discussed - geology and pipelines?

The current Federal cap for environmental damages is a paltry $75M, and the Gulf disaster will cost an order of magnitude more. Obama vows to hold BP accountable for every penny, and their CEO Tony Hayward promised to "honor all legitimate claims", which sounds like the health insurance industry. But BP is the #4 oil company in the world, and so we face the "too big to fail" problem with them. BP is a major employer/taxpayer/campaign contributor, and is the #1 oil supplier for the US wars in the Middle East, doing $2.2B in business with the Pentagon last year. If we lean on BP too much, don't you think they're going to play that card?

BP made over a $17B profit in 2007. Apart from the recession, they have done really well in the last 5 years. If we are serious about avoiding environmental disasters, ensuring safety at facilities, and holding energy companies accountable, we have to hit them where it hurts. Revoke their license to do business. Like the Pfizer Bextra email I sent out before, the FDA has the right idea by blocking medical companies convicted of fraud from doing business with Medicare (unfortunately they let Pfizer off the hook that time because they were "too big"). For energy companies convicted of skirting safety regulations and guilty of causing environmental/human disasters, we should revoke their permits and confiscate their assets. That will keep them on the wagon, or weed out the reckless companies that shouldn't be in business anyway. But of course it's not just the companies' fault. They do what makes business sense. They don't necessarily want to club baby seals, but if the benefits of skirting regulations to improve output outweigh potential government penalties from rare accidents, of course they will keep being reckless.

We people are to blame for our addiction to cheap energy. We should boycott polluters like we did to apartheid South Africa, but then where will we get our power? If we get tough with Big Oil, they will rebut with, "Sure we can reform our operations and become safer/cleaner, but it could cost American jobs and we're going to pass on those costs to the consumer". Then we shut up. The feds are to blame as well, with the Department of Interior is one of the most corrupt parts of our government. Finally the regulators are under fire after the recent coal and oil disasters, and some may have accepted bribes. Obama was right to separate the regulatory and royalty-collecting arms of the DOI due to the obvious conflicts of interest (obvious to anyone outside of Washington it seems). And even so, the US people are getting really shortchanged on energy royalties like we were a Third World shit hole. Oil companies build their offshore platforms just beyond the state waters limit to avoid taxes, yet their wells suck up oil from adjacent rock that the state owns (like "I drank your milkshake!" - Daniel Day Lewis). In Mexico, their constitution states that natural resources belong to the PEOPLE. Not so here. Of course the Mexican people get shortchanged from corruption as well, but they are more progressive than us on this front at least.

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Did we find out that BP is at fault for this particular leak?  Or that it was through skirting of regulations that this occured?  In theory there is a moderately low risk way to drill in the ocean, and i assume the regulations that exist are to hold you to that moderately low risk method.  I read, more so in the end, about how BP skirts regulations in favor of good business, but was that the case here?  I am asking as i have no clue, not as a rhetorical point.  And i believe that BP has most certainly, at least in other isntances, chosen money over "the right thing" but what about in this specific case?

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Well BP blames the rig owner they leased from (since the "fail safe" blowout preventer valve didn't close, in fact 4 of them failed), and the rig owner blames Halliburton for a leaky well head. And Halliburton blames BP because they were just carrying out BP's work order that BP designed. So the merry-go-round of BS continues.

I am not an expert, but drilling a mile underwater in a hurricane area is NOT low risk (industry/conservative propaganda: http://www.aei.org/article/101949). The BP rig was on one of the deepest oil wells on earth (see ABC article below, and actually BP is currently drilling THE deepest well off Texas: 4,000 ft water + 35,5000 ft rock, so cross your fingers). And because of the depth, the rig has to float instead of having fixed moorings, which exposes you to ocean drift. The long drilling pipe means that the oil needs to be pressurized more to reach the surface, which can heat up the oil to 250 F (also increasing the risk of blowout). And of course anything in salt water corrodes, and the deeper you go, the harder it is to monitor, maintain, and service your stuff (as we now see). But I guess they thought it was worth it because the Tiber reserve in the Gulf that BP owns 62% of is estimated to be as lucrative as AK's North Slope (4-6B barrels of gas/oil). But for these expensive, deep projects to pay off, the price of crude must stay above $70/barrel.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=8476359
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_drilling

American Enterprise Institute: The two main reasons oil and other fossil fuels became environmentally incorrect in the 1970s--air pollution and risk of oil spills--are largely obsolete. Improvements in drilling technology have greatly reduced the risk of the kind of offshore spill that occurred off Santa Barbara in 1969... To fear oil spills from offshore rigs today is analogous to fearing air travel now because of prop plane crashes in the 1950s.

Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8651333.stm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100401/bs_afp/uspoliticsenergyoil_20100401033417

"There have been 509 fires, at least two fatalities and 12 serious injuries on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico since 2006." -BusinessWeek

What bad timing that under a month after Obama unveiled a plan to expand offshore oil drilling in the Eastern US and Gulf of Mexico, the BP disaster occurred (11 workers suspected dead, thousands of barrels pouring into the Gulf across a 600-mile-wide area, with the slick heading towards wildlife protected wetlands). Maybe it's a sign. Obama has already ticked off much of his liberal base over concessions to the GOP/Wall Street, dithering on gays in the military, the painful passage of watered-down Obamacare, and inaction on immigration reform. Now this move has angered environmentalists.

Parts of Florida may be on the table as well, but the plan faces protest. It's funny that the flip-flopping FL GOP governor and US Senate hopeful Charlie Crist (who tends to vote anti-gay but is suspected to be a closet homosexual, but that's another story: http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/10933/npr-spikes-outrage-review-that-named-names) was historically against offshore FL drilling, but when he was touted as a possible running mate to pro-drilling McCain in 2008, he suddenly changed his mind. But now that President Obama is calling for the exact same drilling plans, he's against it again.

BP has had a bad safety run in the last decade. In 2005, their refinery at Texas City exploded, causing 15 deaths. In 2006, a corroded pipeline caused 1,500 barrels worth of oil to leak in AK's North Slope, and the next year they had a 2,000 gallon methanol leak in Prudhoe Bay. The company has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines from these accidents. Who knows how much the Gulf disaster will cost, in terms of dollars and environmental harm?

All the easily-accessible oil has been tapped in North America, and most of the world. Expanded offshore drilling through harder rock in deeper water (also areas in hurricane zones) is more expensive, complex, and dangerous. Is it worth the environmental risk and infrastructure investment to do this, just to add a few million barrels per year (and the US consumes 22M barrels per day)? So it's a drop in the bucket gain. Yes oil accidents are rare overall, but when mistakes happen, they really cause problems. Would it make more sense to just keep buying more foreign oil (by foreign, I mean Canada and Mexico mostly), or even affordable Brazilian ethanol, instead? But then US energy and farming companies have a shit fit.