- A Pacific Ethanol plant in Madera, Calif. (Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times)
Ethanol in our gas tanks costs the US taxpayer $6 billion dollars a year, and it’s going to continue—even with the enormous political pressure on both sides of the aisle to reduce the federal deficit. Nobody seems to endorse this subsidy except oil interests. Why oil interests?
Because the $.45 per gallon tax credit goes to the oil refiners who blend corn ethanol with gasoline, not the corn farmer.
That’s right: $6 billion a year in subsidies to oil companies to blend corn ethanol into your gasoline. Along with its many known environmental problems (fertilizer/pesticide pollution, expanding dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico) and economic issues, including using 38 percent of America’s corn crop.
And beyond corn ethanol, “cellulosic” ethanol is not yet ready for prime time, and some in the fuel industry believe CE may well never be ready to stand on its merits without a similar subsidy.
The last thing this country needs is to be locked further into a single alcohol fuel with so many inherent liabilities and concerns, especially when E4™ ENVIROLENE®, a much better “oxygenate” fuel, is waiting in the wings.
The last paragraph in today’s LA Times editorial says it all:
“The lesson: Devotion to rigid party orthodoxy trumps common sense even on those rare occasions when Democrats and Republicans widely agree. That’s grim news for anybody hoping for problem-solving by Congress.”
Ten Million People
