Ethanol Mandate MUST Die This Year!

Ethanol is bad for the economy and bad for our energy dependence from outside the county. Why would anyone believe Ethanol is good for our economy if we have to subsidize it to make it competitive. The fact that it cannot be competitive without a subsidy makes it a loser.

But it's not just ethanol that uses our tax dollars to make it competitive, bio fuels, wind and solar are no better. This is crazy. Maybe not if one looks behind the scenes as to who stands to benifit from all this, politically and financially.

With Conservatives in control of the House of Representatives, it's time to stop this nonsense and return to what works and what this country needs to restore productivity and create jobs.

What we need is to drill for more of our own fossil fuels which drives over 50% of all of our manufacturing needs and supports over 90% of our domestic demands for energy. Also build two new nuclear power plants every year for the next twenty years is another way to stop our dependence on foreign energy sources.

Voters told these guys in Washington, it's time to get real - our entire country and way of life is at risk.

Let Ethanol Subsidies Die
Source: Ronald Bailey, "Let Ethanol Subsidies Die," Reason Magazine, November 16, 2010.

It's time to let ethanol subsidies die, says Ronald Bailey, Reason Magazine's science correspondent.

In 2004, the government started offering a tax credit worth 51 cents for each gallon of gasoline containing 10 percent ethanol. The 2008 farm bill lowered that credit slightly to 45 cents per gallon, but kept it going for another two years.

Meanwhile, diverting grain to ethanol production caused corn prices to soar, lining the pockets of corn growers and refiners while increasing food costs for humans and feed costs for animals.
The good news is that unless Congress acts, the $5 billion in annual subsidies to corn ethanol will expire at the end of the year. The bad news is that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) exacerbated the situation last month when it to raised the amount of ethanol that can be blended with gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent for fueling late model cars.

The EPA boosted the amount of ethanol that can be blended with gasoline because the industry is currently producing 13 billion gallons. Since the United States consumed only 138 billion gallons of gasoline last year, that brings ethanol producers dangerously close to maxing out their market.

In the meantime, higher feed costs have driven farmers to cut their herds -- in July the number of beef cattle in the United States dropped to the fewest since 1973 and the number of breeding hogs fell to near the lowest level ever.

In addition, it turns out ethanol isn't so green after all. Even an analysis by the EPA found that current ethanol production techniques actually result in higher emissions of greenhouse gases than refining and burning ordinary gasoline.

Failing to make a compelling case for the environmental benefits of ethanol, advocates often fall back on claims about energy independence. But a recent analysis by Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, finds that ethanol has not reduced U.S. oil imports, says Bailey.