He's Not the Usual Oil Lobbyist. By Jim Norman, NYTimes, July 6, 2008. "When David Wetzel, a retired food-industry manager in Decatur, Ill., decided to convert his 1986 Volkswagen Golf to run on waste vegetable oil six years ago, he thought he was doing his part for America's energy independence... When two men knocked on his door one morning in January 2007 and introduced themselves as agents from the Illinois Department of Revenue's criminal investigation division. 'They said I was violating the law because I wasn't paying road taxes on the vegetable oil I used, and that I needed a special permit to use the vegetable oil, and that I had to post a $2,500 bond to get it,' he recalled in a recent interview... So Mr. Wetzel, 81, decided to see his state legislators. He testified before the Illinois Legislature and last Aug. 17 the governor, Rod Blagojevich, signed a law exempting individuals from needing a permit and having to post the bond, although they still must pay the road taxes. And to top it off, last December the lieutenant governor, Pat Quinn, invited Mr. Wetzel to Chicago to receive an environmental award."
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