No need for Biden to visit Saudi Arabia when South Dakota has fuel solution: Your letters
Biden didn't need to go to Saudi Arabia to seek fuel solution
President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia to beg for more oil seems unnecessary. He could've saved himself a trip by coming to see what's being done right here in South Dakota.
Sky-high gas prices are inflicting pain on our budgets and our psyche. However, we can do something about it, and it doesn’t require getting on bended knee before oil sheiks. We have a home-grown product that's been proven to significantly improve gasoline quality and save billions at the pump. It dramatically boosts our farmers, the environment, public health and the nation’s energy security.
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Ethanol displaces more than 400 million barrels of oil annually thanks to nationwide use of 10% blend. Transitioning to a national E30 standard would reduce U.S. oil imports by a billion barrels per year. That's more than $100 billion staying here at home.
Experts at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Argonne National Laboratory have concluded that corn ethanol can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 76% compared to gasoline. Other experts predict that over the next several years, high-octane, low-carbon fuels like ethanol will be classified as ultra-low carbon fuels, surpassing the greenhouse gas benefits of vehicles running on electricity produced from coal and natural gas. Higher-octane fuels would also allow automakers to dramatically increase fuel economy and reduce carbon emissions.
South Dakota Farmers Union has long supported the work of Glacial Lakes Energy in Watertown, which every day proves that E30 blends work well in vehicles. Millions of trouble-free miles have been driven on E30 fuels, and lucky Watertown area consumers have saved millions of dollars by purchasing a superior, high-octane, cleaner-burning gasoline.
Mr. President, the answer to our nation’s fuel challenge lies right here in South Dakota. We hope you can visit us soon to see it for yourself.
Doug Sombke, Conde, South Dakota Farmers Union president
Local officials need to protect residents from carbon dioxide pipelines
Summit Carbon Solutions is proposing a hazardous, potentially lethal, CO2 pipeline across 18 South Dakota counties. It would be the first CO2 pipeline in the state and is unlike any other pipelines in our state. Unfortunately, there is still much on where Summit's final route will be. In addition, Summit is proposing the project with no previous experience constructing pipelines.
The pipeline is proposed to be buried 4 feet underground. We all know during rainy seasons with heavy equipment that 4 feet is not nearly enough. This pipeline will be under 2,100 pounds of pressure. Carbon dioxide is odorless and colorless, a silent killer. A pipeline leak or rupture under these concentrations could result in death in less than 15 minutes.
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This year, reports from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and Accufacts back up that current regulations are inadequate. The regulations provided by the federal government are minimums. Only individual counties can set ordinances for setbacks. But why are our counties being so hesitant to protect us?
Hand County was in the lead with protecting their citizens by becoming an intervenor in the Summit legal docket and passing a resolution establishing a temporary moratorium. The July 5 agenda had no indication commissioners would be voting on removing Hand County as an intervenor and/or abandoning Hand County’s pipeline moratorium. Is this legal?
Did the state’s attorney and commissioners succumb to the pressures from Summit that they would be sued if they continue with a moratorium and/or pass ordinances? How many landowners will sue the county for its inaction to protect its citizens?
Are our elected officials, from the top down, being controlled by big corporations with deep pockets? It's up to citizens and landowners to hold each of our county commissioners and state’s attorneys accountable. What will you do?
Joy Hohn, Hartford
Art Marmorstein is a brilliant writer, but missed the mark on abortion
Art Marmorstein is a dazzling writer and thinker.
Not only do I always learn from him, sometimes I even start to unlearn something, which I attribute to his obvious brilliance. He could be a nationally syndicated columnist. He's that talented.
Such praise is warranted. So, too, is my criticism of some of what he wrote against abortion several weeks ago.
This professor of history cherry-picked history to buttress his own distorted, conservative viewpoint. He knows since abortion has been around for millennia, it can't honestly be conflated with any breakdown of family in today's America. He went on to imply that abortion is a result of hippies' free love without any sense of moral responsibility.
Really? None other than Benjamin Franklin included an abortion recipe in a textbook in 1748. While he had long hair, he was hardly a hippie who smoked dope and sat around listening to Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
Want to know the real history behind what's going on now, the history Marmorstein would never teach? This former C- student in college U.S. history will tell you, but if you are at all honest, you already know it.
Men have been lording it over women since Adam and Eve. For centuries, women were their legal property. Even now, men keep oppressing women in all manner of sexist ways. This time they've set up their ugly shop in women's wombs.
The irony is all these years women have struggled for equality when they are, on average, vastly superior to men.
Doubt that? It's all Google-able. Small wonder. then, powerful men are running scared.
Men, including Dr. Marmorstein, should ask themselves how they'd like it if a court took away one of their reproductive choices. A dollar to doughnuts they'd be as upset about it as most women are today.
Douglass Carter, Aberdeen
No surprise that church attendance is down
Your recent article by Bart Pfankuch about declining church affiliation was very interesting, but seemed to miss a few points. Many churches, and organized religion in general, bring these consequences upon themselves.
I, for example, will occasionally volunteer in church soup kitchens to help feed people facing food insecurity. I eventually switched to feeding people in a Sikh temple, a part of community service that they call Langar, because I saw several Christian church soup kitchens turning away needy families, including children, because the parents were lesbians or gay men, and these churches weren't going to "enable" same-sex marriage. The Sikhs would never do anything like this. They feed gay people, drug addicts, prostitutes, ex-cons, all with no strings attached.
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By some criteria, they are more Christian than 90% of the churches where I formerly volunteered. If my experiences are typical and reflective of Christian philosophy, then I'm not surprised that church membership is declining.
Kevin Levites, Ocala, Fla.
Biden voters should emulate him
Joe Biden recently put his cards on the table. More precisely, he turned his instruction card around for everyone to witness his feeble-mindedness. The leader of the free world needs a cheat sheet to undertake basic tasks like entering a room, sitting down and departing. After all, that's a lot juxtaposed together, and Joe wouldn't want to get them out of order.
The most interesting directive from Joe's handlers was, "You take your seat." Apparently "be seated" or "sit down" weren't specific enough and confused Joe. Clarity on who's sitting and standing is vital as Joe once encouraged a wheelchair-bound paraplegic to stand and take a bow.
I'm sure it's amusing to the millions of legitimate voters, who'd have gladly voted for a reeking sock puppet over Donald Trump, that Trump lost to someone so cognitively diminished. As you laugh about that, think back a year ago when Joe Biden met with Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland. How many note cards do you think Joe needed? Do you think Putin noticed Joe shuffling through his cards? Did somebody slip in a "Go ahead, invade Ukraine" card or did Putin just assume that?
Out of respect for Joe's mental decline, everyone who cast a vote for Joe should seek to emulate him. Take a 3-by-5 card and write "you wasted your vote" on it. Take it along to the grocery store, gas station, airport and everywhere else as a reminder that you got what you voted for. You took Dr. Jill's advice, held your nose and voted for Joe, the sock puppet.
Dan Oliver, Aberdeen
Ads about American Innovation and Choice Online Act are misleading
Please do a little homework and look up Senate Bill S.2992, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. It's on the internet. We are being battered with commercials to call our senators and have them oppose this liberal agenda legislation. I have yet to see a commercial with an actual politician saying this is a bad bill. Now there’s a clue.
In reality, it is a bipartisan bill that evens the playing field online. It doesn’t hurt small businesses, it helps them. Do you honestly believe that our Congress would pass a bill to make “China stronger”? No, it would not. This bill is the latest bipartisan effort targeting big tech companies for potential antitrust and consumer choice violations. In a nutshell, it brings our antitrust laws in line with the 21st century and the internet.
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The commercials all say that no Republican senator should support this liberal bill. In actuality, it is bipartisan co-sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hi.), Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.). Six Democrats, six Republicans.
Don’t let the TV and newspaper ads fool you or scare you. This is a good bill and should be passed. Hopefully, our Congress will get this done prior to the fall elections. If they do not, we need to consider how we will vote.
Rick Young, Aberdeen
Why watch Jan. 6 hearings when the outcome is known?
Lots of news lately about the Jan. 6 investigation and the treasonous criminals who tried to overthrow the U.S. government by force on that date. But what does that matter? The guilty know that all they have to do is stall any legal proceedings until Republicans take congressional control six months from now and all fact-finding will stop.
And, if any are actually convicted or sentenced (highly unlikely), all they have to do is wait until Donald Trump or his appointed stooge becomes president in 2025 when they'll all be pardoned anyway. So why watch this ongoing drama when we already know the outcome.
Terry Painter, Rapid City
This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: Letter writers touch on Biden, ethanol, Jan. 6, church attendance
