Posted on 11/29/2015 5:46:00 AM PST by Kaslin
A federal program, once launched, is impossible to kill. It doesn't matter if the scheme wastes money. It doesn't matter if the program doesn't work. It doesn't even matter if the program does the very opposite of what it is supposed to do. Every government program enters the world with an army of fairy godmothers prepared to fend off any effort to cut the cord -- hence the staying power of ethanol.
When President George W. Bush signed legislation to expand a federal requirement to blend gasoline with ethanol in 2007, he could claim with some credibility that he was pushing a renewable alternative to fossil fuels, on which Americans were so dependent. Yes, there were skeptics. I was one of them. But the Bush Renewable Fuel Standard flowed with the mainstream of American politics. In the 2008 presidential election, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was a big booster of the ethanol mandate.
Every year since then, ethanol has been harder to defend. A 2008 study published in Science magazine found that corn-based ethanol increases greenhouse gas emissions instead of reducing them. A 2009 study concluded that plowing fields to grow corn for ethanol could release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ethanol offsets.
FactCheck.org looked at ethanol and found U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored research that concluded that ethanol reduces greenhouse gases. But it's hard to believe that the ethanol mandate is good for the environment when the Sierra Club, the Environmental Working Group and Friends of the Earth oppose the federal program. The Sierra Club describes claims that ethanol reduces carbon input as "extremely dubious."
Ethanol has fallen out of favor largely because it eats up so much of the corn supply. Some 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop goes into gas tanks, not stomachs. As demand for corn has risen, so have food prices. As the cost of feed has risen, so have beef prices. ActionAid USA and other anti-poverty groups also oppose ethanol supports.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has worked across the aisle to end ethanol supports, in part to spur the production of biofuels with smaller environmental footprints. This year, to her undying credit, she joined with Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., to sponsor the Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act of 2015.
Matt Dempsey, a former staffer for Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., of climate skepticism fame, has watched the left and right come together against ethanol for a decade. Now in public relations for the pro-business Center for Regulatory Solutions, Dempsey has been busy alerting states about the high cost folks outside Iowa pay for ethanol. Ethanol gets fewer miles to the gallon than gasoline. Thus, his group estimates that since 2005, the renewable standard has cost Californians an extra $13 billion at the pump.
With such a political heavyweight as Feinstein leading the opposition, you would expect California Democrats to support an effort that helps families keep groceries on the table. It says something about the political heft of the ethanol lobby, however, that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi co-signed a letter with fellow Democrats that urged the Obama administration to "keep in mind the need to reduce carbon pollution" as the president heads to the United Nations climate conference in Paris. The Environmental Protection Agency must release three-year ethanol standards by the end of the month, and Pelosi supports "a robust renewable fuels rule." Read: more ethanol.
Dempsey described the Pelosi letter as "a head-scratcher." He said, "It really stands out as one of the more bizarre moments for Pelosi." The only way it makes sense, Dempsey added, is if Pelosi wants to provide cover for the Obama administration to uphold a mandate that bites into everyone's wallet but, it seems, does not decrease greenhouse gases. Pelosi has to know how bad Obama would look touting ethanol as a tool to combat climate change. To pull off that stunt, Obama should avoid the City of Light and instead head for Iowa.
Which, perversely, supports my comment about keeping corn prices high, except perhaps I should have said higher than otherwise. When you have that government mandate, you effect the markets and thus, tracking backwards, the planning of the farmers of crops for sale. Once the seeds are in the ground - it is the very definition of a "sunk cost!" To effect a LOGICAL change, the required purchases from the government program has to be scaled back in a manner to allow the farmers to properly reallocate with minimum disruption.
However, when speaking of the EPA (and/or government in general), logic is not a recognized commodity. Another EPA mandate, close cousin to the Ethanol measures, is/was the requirements for "cellulosic biofuel" which is a catchall name for non-foodstuff source materials. To date, this has been a low-yield laboratory experimental process, yet up to 2012, the EPA had an ever increasing industrial amounts being required and was fining the refiners for the failure to use what was obviously unobtainable. After much bad publicity and a lawsuit loss, the EPA was forced to tone-down the effort.
"Logic? We don't need no stinking logic! We are the EPA - the clean government bureaucrats!"
Which means exactly nothing, since there has been no significant "global warming" in a decade. And if there was, it would certainly not be caused by a non-reactive gas which comprises .004 of the atmosphere
Shows that he has balls.
Cruz or lose.
Which is it? You can't have it both ways.
FYI, I grew up in Iowa. I lived on a farm. I worked on a farm. All my friends lived and worked on farms. There's a REASON Iowa Corn Farmers LOVE ethanol subsidies: IT RAISES CORN PRICES by reducing the amount of land Feed Corn is grown on.
You simply do not know what you're talking about.
On vacation this summer, we to boy to visit Purdue, etc. Must have driven through 1000 miles of Corn fields mixed w soybean fields.
Thanks for the 411.
As with all issues, it is more complicated than first glance. Free Republic is the best. I am so appreciative of the imput we get here. That said, I do not support corn or sugar subsidies.
The ethanol subsidies ended a couple years ago but the mandate still remains.
IT RAISES CORN PRICES by reducing the amount of land Feed Corn is grown on.
I guess you missed the part where digested ethanol mash is then fed to cattle. Feed corn/ethanol mash...same thing.
Beef prices were effected by the recent drought, as cattle are being kept off the market to rebuild the herds.
Now, explain the outrageous prices on potato chips.
Then something will happen to the ethanol market. Either it will crash, or gasahol prices will skyrocket. Last week, I saw regular and gasahol offered at the same pump. The ethanol fuel was cheaper.
I love ethanol.
What I don’t love is government subsidies and mandates.
I think there should be exactly as much ethanol produced as the market will bear.
And I say this as someone who lives right in the heart of corn country.
Sure, a few people have done really well from this latest form of crony capitalism/state socialism.
But our entire farm economy has been built on shifting sand, on a short-sighted, selfish illusion.
It’s inflated land prices and the costs of inputs and equipment insanely. It’s priced out new farmers, and what new farmers there are are forced to farm rented ground. And of course cash rents are also wildly inflated.
So, we’re seeing the results of that this year. We just produced a record crop, by the grace of God. It was a nearly perfect growing season. Just the right amount of rain at exactly the right times. There have been yields superior to anything ever seen. But prices are so low that the guys paying cash rent are actually going in the hole.
The guys who already have theirs are going to make a little money this year. The landlords are going to do fine.
But the future is being squandered by government distortion of the markets.
And in the midst of overwhelming plenty, many will suffer great want, and even bankruptcy.
It’s a great perversion.
And it is also quite predictable.
In fact, some of us predicted it. I for one spelled it out quite clearly when I ran for governor last year. Few Iowans wanted to listen, of course....
>>>When President George W. Bush signed legislation to expand a federal requirement to blend gasoline with ethanol in 2007<<<
Thanks George.
Well, Nixon did start the EPA after all.
Finally some common sense about ending the ethanol boondoggle. However, ethanol has nothing to do with the environment, but is simply an expensive farm subsidy program that is making corn farmers and ethanol companies rich with both our taxes and higher grocery prices. I have little hope that this program will be ended. Look at the decades of government subsidies paid to produce mohair, a goat wool for which there is no modern use.
I have ethanol free gas within a mile of my house but it costs a lot more than the ten percent ethanol even though I know of no reason why it should.
Factor in less maintenance and higher mileage without the corn juice.
“Last week, I saw regular and gasahol offered at the same pump. The ethanol fuel was cheaper.”
If you mean by regular pure gasoline without ethanol and by gasahol you mean ten percent ethanol then the pricing is the same here. In fact if I could buy ten percent ethanol and filter out the ethanol and throw it away it would be considerably cheaper than buying pure gasoline. That makes no sense at all to me.
My car gets about eight percent lower mpg with ten percent ethanol, that is not enough to make up the huge difference in price. So far I am not having maintenance problems with the car engine so I don’t think the ethanol is really harming my engine, it was designed for ten percent ethanol. I do buy straight gasoline for my chain saws, riding mower etc.
I guess you missed the part that processing corn into ethanol and ethanol mash is actually more expensive in the first place. Again, it takes more energy to produce ethanol, than the energy ethanol returns. I don't care that one of the end products, ethanol mash is then fed to cattle. It still has to be processed and there's an expense component to that, which you're missing.
Beef prices were effected by the recent drought, as cattle are being kept off the market to rebuild the herds.
I wish I could go back and find that post on this thread to credit the original poster. He was of course, absolutely correct. I'm not debating his point however.
Now, explain the outrageous prices on potato chips.
Sorry, I don't eat them and wouldn't know the first thing about potato chip prices. I try to stay away from heavily processed food. Perhaps it has something to do with the Irish potato famine of 1845 - 1852?
What is the price difference?
I am not exactly sure since the prices for both have gone down but before the recent drop in price the straight gasoline was eighty cents or more per gallon higher than the ten percent ethanol. I have wondered if it was simply a matter of the low volume on the straight gasoline demanding a higher price to cover handling costs since it has to be kept separate from the ten percent mix. They don’t even have it at a regular pump with a card reader, it is at a different pump so you have to go inside and pay for it before you pump it.
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