Progressive group launches $400K ad campaign
Source: Amanda Peterka, E&E reporter • Posted: Friday, June 27, 2014
The TV campaign, which will begin airing Sunday, features an ad that links turmoil in the Middle East to higher gas prices in the United States. It touts ethanol as a means of energy independence.
“We can take control with renewable fuels like ethanol,” a voiceover in the ad says. “It means more jobs and more security, less pollution and less pain at the pump.”
The ad will air Sunday in the Washington, D.C., area on several news programs and then run nationally on MSNBC, CNN and FOX News through July 3. Americans United for Change is also planning complementary digital ads.
The campaign is the latest in a string of AUFC ads in support of the renewable fuel standard, the federal policy through which U.S. EPA sets yearly requirements for ethanol and advanced biofuel use. It comes as EPA is in the final stages of weighing a controversial rule that would roll back this year’s biofuel requirements for the first time since the RFS was put into place in 2007 (E&ENews PM, Nov. 15, 2013).
“If anything should give the EPA pause before deciding to roll back the Renewable Fuel Standard, it’s the bubbling turmoil in Iraq,” said Jeremy Funk, director of AUFC, in a statement.
Oil, livestock, restaurant and environmental interests have called for either the repeal or an overhaul of the RFS, linking it to higher food costs, engine damage and negative environmental consequences.