1. Ethanol actually is lowering the cost of gasoline right now even with the wrong headed blenders credit. Ethanol is cheaper to produce than the same amount of gasoline, by BTU, is being sold for by a wide margin right now.
2. I support renewable fuel not because I believe in any theoretical warming crisis or climate alarmism, but because I don't think it is wise to burn up the world's oil reserves that are being quickly depleted in a matter of a few generations, and do not seem to replenish themselves. Will our great grand children be happy we burned up the world's resources when their were already renewable alternatives, just because we were resistant to change?
3. I'd rather see jobs created producing fuel in this country than pay to buy it (directly or indirectly) from people who want to kill Americans and destroy our way of life.
4. The price of Corn going up is a great help to our farmers (it is a pass along cost for ranchers)since Manufacturing has been squeezed here in the USA, grain and meat exports are an ever increasing share of our foreign trade. As the world price rises for food our exports become more valuable as manufactured goods are becoming cheaper. Would you want it the other way? furthermore the law of supply and demand dictates that as the price of food goes up, third world farming operations that were once economically infeasible can now support their farmers leading to a greater overall supply of food and limiting the rise in food prices while increasing supply. We're crazy to be complaining about corn being used for fuel while our government is still paying farmers to grow weeds. (native grasses)
Furthermore I can't believe when Sel Graham, an oil and gas attorney is quoted in the article saying “Abolishing the ethanol mandate... would: (1) lower gasoline prices by millions of dollars; (2) result in billions of miles of free travel annually; (3) prevent millions of tons of additional carbon dioxide from being emitted into the air; and (4) improve national security and the energy picture since it is impossible for US ethanol to ever replace foreign oil imports.” that smart people here on FR believe those kind of lies.
With regard to your anecdotal evidence regarding your O2 sensor and "service required" light, I'll just counter with my own experience that after having my "service engine soon" light come on as a result of the O2 sensor in my 96 Chevy Impala SS, I fixed it by adding about 35% E-85 to my gas and this highly oxygenated fuel then burned the sensor clean and the light went out and the engine came back out of reversion mode for fuel metering. So while you claim ethanol ruins your stuff, it fixed mine, and often running a higher blend of ethanol than the prescribed 10%(which all cars are now built to take) resulted in my engine outlasting the transmission and the rest of the car.
FYI: Ethanol ups the octane of gasoline by quite a bit, so blenders now blend crappy cheaper and lower octane gasoline with the ethanol to achieve the same octane ratings that once required better gasoline. It pains me to see fellow republicans being turned against ethanol with the kind of poppycock arguments spelled out above and usually only effective on Democrats.
I forgot to add that: while I don’t believe “corn” ethanol is the ideal solution, or that we should refuse to import Brazilian “sugar cane” ethanol, ethanol as a whole is a step towards sustainable practices and we’ll eventually figure out which crops are the most optimal if market forces are allowed to prevail within the Government’s policy of breaking the current shortsighted petroleum based fuel monopoly.
If it needs a subsidy it isn’t real.
What poppycock. Your post reaks of someone from the utterly corrupt ethanol lobby.
The US had 1200 years of readily accessible clean coal. We have hundreds of years of natural gas and oil reserves.
There is no "depletion" in the foreseeable future. The reality is that without massive subsidies, wind and solar would be niche markets. Without subsidies ethanol would NEVER have become the evil scam that it has become.
Every year, massive "new" finds of energy sources of found. The peak oil freaks and other fatalist think the end of fossil fuels is a few generations away. What utter ignorance for anyone to believe such.
In hundreds of years, when fossil fuels are still readily available, there likely will have some discovery that will make energy even less costly. Let free people decide in the marketplace.
Nuclear is the potential to provide vast amounts of energy for all the worlds needs.
The only crisis in energy is politicians around the world interfering in the marketplace.
BTW, I know two auto repair shop owners. They state without a doubt that ethanol is destructive to older cars, and to small engines.