Biofuels industry launches ad campaign to counter oil and gas

Staff report

youngstown

The biofuels industry is pushing back against several ad campaigns the oil-and-gas industry has been running in Ohio for years now.

On Monday, the ethanol- industry advocacy group Growth Energy launched its “You’re no Dummy” ad campaign to combat what it calls the oil industry’s attempt to “stop the growth of clean, green renewable fuels to protect their own bottom lines.”

“For far too long, big oil has run a campaign of misinformation and unsubstantiated attacks against the renewable-fuels industry,” the group wrote in a press release. “It is high time consumers get a reality check from big oil’s propaganda.”

The ad campaign started Monday on local networks in Youngstown and also on major cable networks such as Fox, CNN and MSNBC.

Though not at all aimed at renewable energy, a public-relations campaign spearheaded by the American Petroleum Institute called “Energy from Shale” has been running for a few years now in Arkansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

The print, television and radio ads are mainly an effort to build grass-roots support and help educate the public on the industry’s operations, according to the API.

Companies such as Chevron and BP also run commercials in Ohio about their onshore and offshore drilling operations.