Messages to Senator Crapo

Senator Crapo entered the video conference at 12:30 PM. The conference lasted for 15 minutes.

Willie Mundy's Opening Statement at October 22 Video Conference with Senator Crapo

Senator Crapo,

We would like to express our appreciation for the support you have given to our state on issues such as; transparency in government, veterans healthcare and benefits, restoring salmon to our communities, and other important Idaho initiatives. As you know Idaho and the Region have had to work extra hard to try to keep up with the change our country has experienced in the last thirty years.

In past economic challenges, our government has always seemed to lean toward fast, one sided solutions that usually benefitted special interests. Has this been the best choice and what are the signs that show this trend to be continuing today? Recent developments with our economy show that deregulation or no regulation has shown a complete disregard for the long term health of our country. This continues to be evident in the transition to renewable energy.

Transition from carbon based energy is being controlled by large companies, resulting in limited growth of renewable resources such as ethanol fuel. Blending fuel tax incentives are given to oil companies instead of ethanol producers, giving the oil companies the means to take profits away from these renewable energy producers by controlling their markets. An example of this is the limited or no access to E85 (from no access to infrastructure) or even no research into E100 fuel technology (funded by the DOE). This is causing financial failures in ethanol producing organizations and resulting in the oil companies buying them out. The end result is the continued use of carbon fuels and less renewable energy being developed or consumed!

In the last year our experience has been that the current delivery system of support from our governments both financially and technically has been directed away from individuals (small companies) with no or limited resources, to non-profits and large companies with extensive resources (universities, automobile manufacturers and oil companies). This has almost eliminated competition from the majority of people in our country that have the hands on real world experience and the knowledge to help develop and implement sensible alternatives to our energy needs today.

Our project in Salmon can be the example model! We have the technology and the means to deliver renewable energy to our country, starting in our town, if we could get the financial support we need. We have assembled a group of average Americans from farmers, to entrepreneurs, machinists, to scientists, retired engineers, and architects and even retired state inspectors that have the ability to make our project work in the world today. We have no means to fund a project of this size due to loss revenues and jobs from natural resources! By supporting our project you can help the people improve the quality of life deserved by all, in every state, town and neighborhood in our country! This can all start right here in Salmon, Idaho.

You, Senator are one of the last chances that we have to get the support we need. You can help us move forward with developing a way to supply our country with sensible, clean energy and support all sectors of our economy with ideas created by the people that are affected by these issues the most, today!

After Willie's opening statement, Senator Crapo said that Willie had accurately described the situation our government has created.

Then Cal explains some of the ways we have tried to get help so we can help ourselves.

Last year we in Salmon spent $10.5 million in gasoline from foreign oil. We want to stop doing this. We have a plan to make the fuel we need. More than 5,000 towns, like Salmon, nationwide, spend $53 billion on gasoline from imported oil. The money spent on gasoline gets big fast. These other towns can make their own fuel too.

The reason we are not making our fuel is because nobody in town has the money to get started on this project of energy independence. We have submitted a USDA SBIR grant. We ordinary people wrote this grant, which is in competition with companies and with universities for the limited grant money.

We also explained our project to Laurel Sayer, from Mike Simpson’s office, here in Salmon. She tried to help by directing us to INL for technical help. We got no help from INL.

We explained how our project fits Project 60, which our governor explained to us here in Salmon recently. That effort has gone nowhere.

Idaho Technet has helped us and the Idaho Department of Commerce has helped us, none of these efforts has led to success.

What steps do you think we can take to get help with making our own fuel?

Senator Crapo said he will work with Senator Brownback to help get blue prints from the Kansas Company (ICM), for a 1 million gallon per year (gpy) plant. Senator Crapo appointed his staff Bob Ford (208-334-1776) in Boise and Luke Tomanelli (202-870-4332) in Washington to help us with writing a business plan, with getting a grant, and with everything else we need to make our project successful and for Salmon to be the model for 5,000 small towns to become energy independent.

Steve Dahl, Pattie Dahl, Cal Leman, Charlie Thornton, Wayne Talmadge, and Willie Mundy, participated in the video conference in Salmon.

Senator Crapo and Luke Tomanelli participated in the video conference in Washington.