Still, I hadn't heard before that we were importing refined gas. I'm not saying it's impossible but I'd sure like to see support for that assertion.

It took me a bit of searching, but I found something here:

http://www.isa.org/InTechTem...ntID=38089

The site itself didn't load, but google still had it in its cache (sorry, had to chop that line up a bit, it looked really awful):

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=...w.isa.org/
InTechTemplate.cfm%3FSection%3DBusiness1%26template%3D/
ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm%26ContentID%3D38089
+usa+imports+gasoline+europe&hl=de&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=de

Here's another site that mentions the imports:

http://www.usatoday.com/educate/c...-12-05.htm

And another (hm, I heard that the Christian Science Monitor is a fairly reputable source of information):

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0921...-usec.html

I also found some really dated sites (2004) that mentioned growing gasoline imports to the US from Europe. I guess it's a very old hat, but not really widelyknown.

Apparently, this is due to a couple of things - firstly, only the European refineries can produce gasoline that's up to the latest US standards (before that, the US were apparently importing gasoline from all over the place). Also, European refineries usually produce more gasoline than they can sell locally, due to the larger usage of diesel in Europe.

I'm guessing that might be more true than you know.

Oh, I've spent some time in the Midwest, and what farmers there call their back yard (not their fields) could easily contain an entire German farm (fields and all).