Why Support the Open Fuel Standard Act of 2011?

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1. Save money. It will bring down gas prices at the pump. The main reason gas is so expensive is that OPEC deliberately lowers its production to raise the price of oil, and we have no real fuel choice at the pump. It is all made of oil. So when OPEC reduces its production and makes oil more expensive, we have no other choice — we must pay it. OPEC knows this, and takes advantage of its leverage. Fuel choice at the pump will be the end of a long-running monopoly.

2. Healthier. The fumes from burning alcohol are less toxic than the fumes from burning gasoline — considerably less toxic to humans and other living things. Fuel choice at the pump will include mostly alcohol fuels.

3. Better economy. It will generate jobs in the United States. Americans will be building fuel-processing plants, fuel stations, growing the raw materials to make methanol from biomass, growing crops to make ethanol, inventing new kinds of fuel, and coming up with new ways to make fuel from waste products. American ingenuity will have a field day.

4. Safer. Alcohol is less flammable than gasoline, and therefore less dangerous (less likely to explode). Alcohol burns cooler than gasoline, too, which also makes it less dangerous.

5. Cooler. Alcohol fuels will put less carbon into the air. To drill for oil, you're taking carbon out from underneath the surface of the earth and burning it, adding carbon to the air that wasn't already there. But to make ethanol and methanol, you use plant material. So the plant pulls carbon out of the air, and then when it is burned as fuel, it returns the same carbon back into the air.

6. Good for everyone. It will have a positive global impact, for two reasons: First, because the U.S. buys so many cars, when foreign car makers switch to making flex fuel cars, those same cars will be sold in other parts of the world, spreading fuel choice everywhere (and reducing pollution, reducing environmental damage from oil spills, and reducing carbon in the air everywhere, too).

And second, methanol from biomass will probably become the preferred fuel (it's very cheap, high octane, and can be made from almost anything). And Third World countries — especially those in tropical regions, where plants grow abundantly — will have money-making opportunities to cultivate plants to use for biomass, creating a market for their products, which will raise their income.

7. Cheap. Manufacturing a car with flex-fuel capability adds very little to the price of a car. It is a relatively small tweak, usually adding around one hundred dollars to the price of a new car.

8. Cheaper. It doesn't cost the federal government any money.

9. Environmentally friendly. An "alcohol spill" would not be a disaster like an oil spill. Alcohol dissolves in water and is readily consumed by bacteria. Within a few days of an Exxon-sized ethanol or methanol spill, the ocean would be back to normal.

10. Security. The fuel competition at the pump will reduce the amount of money going to regimes hostile to America (and hostile to their own populations). These regimes are dangerous for the world, and their enormous revenues give them power and influence around the world. Democracies would be better off if those regimes didn't have their inexhaustible wealth to wield.Read more here.

11. Freedom. The bill requires 95 percent of cars to be capable of burning gasoline, ethanol, and methanol in any combination by 2017. So each car will be capable of burning any and all of these liquid fuels. Or the car could be electric, hydrogen, natural gas, bio-diesel, or any other non-gasoline-burning car. The bill is being referred to as the all-of-the-above option, or a technology-neutral bill, meaning that it doesn't favor any particular option, but allows the market to decide where innovation can lead.

For all these reasons, The Open Fuel Standard Act is worthy of our support. Here's what you can do to help.