U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin said a reported link between increased ethanol production and a potential Iowa water shortage fails to take into account technological advances and appears to be another round in a battery of “scare” tactics.

The Des Moines Register this morning reports that the mass quantity of water needed for ethanol could create a water shortage – and quotes one Democratic state senator as saying the ethanol-water issue is more distressing than hog lots located near streams.

Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, addressed the story in a conference call with Iowa Independent and other media this morning.

“I follow these and I see all this scare stuff,” Harkin said. “Am I concerned about the water table? Of course I am. But then I see these new kinds of research, new plants coming along that use a lot less water. They’re a lot more efficient. That’s progress.”

The Register, which led with the story today, quoted State Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, as saying “as it relates to water I’m more concerned about the production of ethanol right now” than livestock near streams.

“It seems to me that maybe somebody is trying to get rid of the subsidy for ethanol,” Storm Lake Times editor Art Cullen said in a question posed to Harkin on the conference call.

“I think that’s a very big part of it,” Harkin said. “I think you’re going to find more and more of these scare things coming up.”

The percentage of Iowa’s water-use inventory related to biofuels production is about 7 percent, according to The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Ethanol advocates call that a “drop in the bucket.”

Further, Harkin said the ethanol industry is making progress.

“We just need to continue that kind of research,” he said.

He also said ethanol is a relatively new industry that is going to improve, and that the 51-cent-per-gallon federal subsidy would appear to be secure despite the detractors.

“I think the future is very good for it,” Harkin said.

The Register reports that the 51-cent-a-gallon ethanol subsidy alone will cost taxpayers $6.4 billion a year when the distilleries now under construction around the country are completed in coming months, pushing annual production to 12.6 billion gallons.

While there is strong support for the fuel, Harkin said, politicians occasionally deliver speeches about gutting ethanol supports.
“I used to debate (former U.S. Sen.) Phil Gramm from Texas on the floor of the senate on that ad nauseum,” Harkin said. “He’d talk about, `Well, you know, ethanol’s got to stand on its own two feet.’ He’s not against ethanol as long as we didn’t subsidize it.”

Harkin said he would counter by showing posters with the amount of subsidies oil companies have received in the last 100 years.

“Ethanol pales, pales in insignificance compared to the amount of government help that the oil industry has gotten in the last 100 years,” Harkin said.