No Runny Eggs

Since our friends at Journal Interactive don’t feel the need to enable comments, I guess I have to answer Charlie’s rhetorical questions for Sgt. Schultz here:

(A) Yes he does know how bad the ethanol mandate will split the base, but not only in southeastern Wisconsin. As, charitably, a “country-club” Pubbie, he’s far more comfortable with, say, Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale) than Scott Walker. That also explains the visceral reaction from the RPW, especially those from the Green Bay area, to Scott Walker’s candidacy, and the abandonments by the RPW of the last 2 opponents to Russ el-Slimeroad.

(B) It will only hurt Mark Green up until the end of the primary. Unlike those country-club Pubbies, who tend to refuse to back conservative Pubbies, conservative Pubbies tend to back even moderates.

(C) Frankly, the GOP legislature had no backbone or principles before this, especially Sgt. Schultz’s Senate.

(D) He’s betting, much like Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale), that money solves everything. As an aside, we could stand to lose Kapanke and Brown, even if it costs the Pubbies those 2 seats; such are the benefits of a titular 3-seat majority.

In short, he does fully-understand this. As a RepublicRAT, he just doesn’t give a flying damn (I would use the f-bomb, but I don’t want Casper’s work filters declaring NRE a porn site again).

Revisions/extensions (4:38 pm 3/8/2006) – Charlie is reporting that AB15 WILL be on the Senate calendar tomorrow. It’s show time.

Our anti-bad-gas whip, James, reports that despite losing a straw vote in the Republican caucus 13-5, and by James’ account, only having 11 of the 18 votes he needs to force corn-a-hole on everybody in Wisconsin make that 12 if his report that Senate Minority Leader Judy Robson (Chilrun will die!-Madistan) does the expected and rolls like the Sierra Club to make state gubmint ever larger, Senate Majority “Leader” Sgt. Dale Schultz (RepublicRAT-No talk radio here) is going to push AB15 to the floor tomorrow. The funny thing is, if the vote track is right, two of the drunk Pubbies had a moment of clarity because we had 7 big-gubmint, big-business Pubbies counted – Sgt. Schultz, Ron Brown, Shelia Harsdorf, Dan Kapanke, Alan Lasee, the no-longer-abstaining Luther Olsen (whose vote is apparently needed to enrich his family business) and Dave Zien.

This is it; I don’t care if you’ve already hammered your Senator or not, whether your Senator plans on voting against or for AB15, or if he or she still has the finger in the wind. Hammer them one more time to drive the stake into the cold heart of AB15. James has the Madison phone numbers on his vote chart, and if you don’t know who your Senator is, you can either head here to find your Senator and his or her contact info, or call the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-362-9472 (1-800-228-2115 for the hearing-impaired) and have the staff pass along the message (they’ll help you find out who your Senator is).

Revisions/extensions part 2 (8:15 pm 3/8/2006) – And the war against Sgt. Schultz is on. Patrick called for a coup, Charlie asks whether Sgt. Schultz has a clue, and Поле Выстраивает Chris is mobilizing the Glorious Guards Shock Army for the drive to the Mississippi with an early stop in Richland Center. Since I’m about a quarter-mile behind enemy lines, I can’t do much more than promote this war, but promote it I will.

What version of the R&E is this? (11:10 pm 3/8/2006) – Peter checks in with his official photo of Sgt. Schultz, wonders what kind of deal he cut with Robson, and calls for Schultz’s defeat, “even if it means putting a Democrat in the seat”. Note to Peter; there already is one there – Sgt. Schultz. Meanwhile, Owen explains everything that can still happen to AB15. I make it no secret I prefer it defeated on the floor, but if it’s sent back to committee, it’ll kill it for at least a month.

The hot rumor (courtesy Owen originally) is that state senate majority “leader” Sgt. Dale Schultz (ADM-No Talk Radio Here) is going to try to ram through AB15, the bad-gas mandate, tomorrow (update as I prepped this; they’re not voting tomorrow, but with Sgt. Schultz, who knows?). This is despite the fact that we have now pulled even with ADM on James’ count at 11 apiece (assuming that Luther Olsen, whose family stands to profit handsomely, decides to end his self-imposed abstention and vote to enrich his brother). According to his handy chart, that leaves these 11 Senators on the fence, complete with their Madison office numbers –

• Democrat Roger Breske of the 12th district (far northeast Wisconsin) – 608-266-2509
• Democrat Tim Carpenter of the 3rd district (south side of Milwaukee and much of Greenfield) – 608-266-8535
• Democrat Spencer Coggs of the 6th district (near north side of Milwaukee) – 608-266-2500
• Republican Robert Cowles of the 2nd district (pretty much just north and west of Green Bay) – 608-266-8546
• Republican Mike Ellis of the 19th district (Neenah, most of Menasha and Appleton, and points west through Winneconne) – 608-266-0718
• Republican Scott Fitzgerald of the 13th district (Oconomowoc, Beaver Dam, Watertown, Lake Mills, Cambridge, and surrounding areas) – 608-266-5660 – James notes he’s on the fence, and I can see the Glorious Guards Shock Army straining at the leash
• Democrat Robert Jauch of the 25th district (far northwest Wisconsin) – 608-266-3510
• Democrat Julie Lassa of the 24th district (Stevens Point, Wisconsin Rapids, and surrounding areas) – 608-266-3123
• Democrat Judith Robson of the 16th district (Beloit, Janesville and surrounding areas including Whitewater) – 608-266-2253, and James notes she’s on the fence
• Republican Carol Roessler of the 18th district (Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, Waupun) – 608-266-5300
• Democrat Lena Taylor of the 4th district (far north side of Milwaukee and the RiverWest area) – 608-266-5810

They may be voting tomorrow; they may not be. I prefer that Sgt. Schultz miscalculates in his count, has the vote, and we drive the stake through it tomorrow; but if we have to just keep it bottled up in committee through the end of the year, that’ll kill it just as surely. In any case, politely hammer these 11 so that AB15 never sees Jim “Craps” Doyle’s (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale) signature.

(H/T – Dad29)

It seems that Tom Reynolds did, and he found some interesting items:

• On February 10, 2006, the average retail price of gasoline in Wisconsin was $2.375 per gallon.   On February 10, 2006, ethanol traded at $2.73 per gallon on the Chicago Board of Trade.
• The Oil Price Information Service explains that increase in a February 2, 2006 article – “This latest round of price increases for domestic ethanol is tied predominantly to new demand for the Northeast as well as from huge metro RFG markets in Virginia and Texas. There clearly is more ethanol buying interest at the moment than there are sellers willing to commit barrels or term product for distribution in the pivotal second and third calendar quarters….   As February began, spot ethanol in the New York Harbor vicinity was pegged at nearly $2.70/gallon. Six-month term deals for April through September delivery were discussed at between $2.70 and $2.80/gallon”
• The US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration predicted “a very tight ethanol market” through the first half of 2006, and noted that a complete phase-out of MTBE in favor of ethanol on the East Coast would increase ethanol consumption 90,000 barrels per day (or more than double what the East Coast uses now).

Does anyone remember what other “clean-burning” product the “it’s cheaper” claims were made by its proponent, and what happened to the price of that product once a modest shift to that product was made?   I’ll give you a hint – its March 2006  futures  closed Friday on NYMEX at  $7.360 per million BTUs, roughly 22% higher than the March 2005 futures were at this point last year.

Revisions/extensions – The price differential is even worse than Sen. Reynolds says.   At the trading level, where we compare the proverbial apples to apples, unleaded gasoline futures (March 2006)  on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed at $1.4290 per gallon  while ethanol futures (March 2006)  closed at $2.730 per gallon on the Chicago Board of Trade.   Rounding to the nearest penny, ethanol is $1.30 per gallon more expensive than unleaded gasoline.

I know what you ethanol-sniffers will say next; what about the taxes slapped on gasoline?   They’re not reflected in the futures price.   True.   However, when ethanol is used as a fuel, it’s also slapped with those same taxes.   Morever, even in WisTAXsin, that’s “only” $0.513 per gallon.

Hell, let’s do some math.   There’s roughly an 12-cent/gallon profit margin for gasoline between the futures market and a Wisconsin terminal, then there’s the 51.3-cent/gallon taxes slapped on there, then a 3% markup mandated by the state at the terminal, and a 9.18% markup mandated by the state at the retail level.   With good, E0 gas, that brings the pump price up to about $2.30/gallon, which is where things stand. Now, let’s take E10 bad-gas.   9/10ths of that is made up of unleaded gas, so the price of that portion of the gas is $1.286/0.9 gallon (I’ll round to the nearest tenth).   Ethanol makes up the other tenth, so the price of that portion of the gas is $0.273/0.1 gallon.   Add the two together to get the net “futures” price – $1.559/gallon.   Add the 12-cent/gallon pre-terminal profit margin and the 51.3-cent/gallon taxes and you come up with a pre-state-mandated-profit price of $2.192/gallon.   Add the 3% state-mandated margin at the terminal, and it leaves there at $2.258/gallon.   Add the 9.18% state-mandated margin at the pump and you’re paying $2.465/gallon.

Last time I checked, $2.465 is $0.165 more than $2.30.   If AB15 were law today, and we ignored the fact that the increased consumption of ethanol forced by AB15 would further increase the market price of ethanol, unleaded gasoline would be 7.2% more expensive than it is now.   I’m not enough of an economist to forecast how much more expensive ethanol would be with AB15, but I do know that it would  make ethanol more expensive than it is now.

(Continuing the list from the December version)

So far, we have exactly one 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  of the 17 votes we need to kill this awful excuse of a bill, plus a “promise” of an abstention from Luther Olsen  –

-Ted Kanavas (H/T –David – in the comments part of the link back to Badger Blogger)

– Neal Kedzie (H/T – James Wigderson)

– Mary Lazich (from both the comments in the December version of this by an anonymous source and James)

– Cathy Stepp, a former co-sponsor (thanks, Peter, also back in the December version) – see, we can turn Senators back from the Dark Side.

– Tom Reynolds (H/T – LB2 – in the comments part in the link back to Badger Blogger)

– Joe Leibham (H/T – Kevin)

– Glenn Grothman (H/T – TomInWestBend – in the comments on the post from the Wigderson Library & Pub)

– Jeff Plale, my state Senator and the first Democrat to swear off the ethanol (see below)

– Dave Hansen (H/T – James)

– Also, Luther Olsen, whose family stands to become rich beyond the dreams of Avaris, abstained in the committee vote (of course, it passed there 4-2, so he wasn’t needed; I doubt he’ll stay silent if Sgt. Schultz needs him to be vote #18).

We’ve  finally crossed the halfway threshhold, but the ADM lobby  did first  (they’re up to 10 of the 18 they need, 11  if you include Olsen). If you haven’t worked over your state Senator, do so. If you have and they haven’t gotten the message, lather, rinse and repeat. If they have sworn off the ethanol, take the time to thank them.

Homer nod (10:26 pm 1/18/2006) – corrected the math
Homer nod part 2 (1:08 pm 1/19/2006) – durn typos
Revisions/extensions (8:15 am 2/6/2006) – With the move to WP, I can now constantly update across months  without worrying about losing the URL.
More revisions/extensions (5:54 pm 2/6/2006) – We’re safe until 2/21 according to James, but he found another lush.

Charlie reports that three  Assemblymen who drank the ethanol Kool-Aid when they first acted upon the bad-gas bill have now flipped and will oppose it when the Sierra Club-endorsed revision to explicitly  stick it to business comes back to them:   Mark Gottlieb, Samantha Kerkman and Robin Vos.   Let’s try to make it so that AB15 doesn’t even make it back to them; call your Senator today and get  him or her  to oppose AB15.