Victory! Congress Allows Ethanol Subsidy To Expire
Victory! Congress Allows Ethanol Subsidy To Expire
* by Beth Buczynski
* January 3, 2012
Between holiday festivities and the general frustration at Congress’ inability to make a productive decision about, well, anything, we almost missed the fact that politicians actually got something right: they allowed a multi-billion dollar subsidy for the corn ethanol industry to expire.
The subsidy — the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit — provided the oil and agribusiness industries with $0.45 per gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline, amounting to a total of approximately $6 billion each year.
Several environmental organizations, including Care2 partner Friends of the Earth (FOE), campaigned for years to expose the dirty, wasteful underbelly of the corn ethanol industry. Last year, over 24,000 Care2 members signed a FOE petition telling members of Congress to vote against the ethanol tax credit extension, and on December 31, their efforts were rewarded.
“The end of this giant subsidy for dirty corn ethanol is a win for taxpayers, the environment and people struggling to put food on their tables,” said FOE biofuels policy campaigner Michal Rosenoer. ”Corn ethanol is extremely dirty. It leads to more climate pollution than conventional gasoline, and it causes deforestation as well as agricultural runoff that pollutes our water. The growing demand for fuel crops also means less land is available for growing food, so food prices are going up. This is something many families simply cannot afford.”
more...
http://www.care2.com/causes/victory-congress-allows-ethanol-subsidies-to-expire.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Last edited Thu Feb 2, 2012, 10:01 PM - Edit history (2)
Ethanol & Bio Diesel is being ran in all of todays vehicles with no conversion. Ethanol & Bio Diesel is being transported to, pumped through & sold in all of todays gas stations with no conversions. It will take major facility modifications in order to make other transportation energy sources available, not to mention transport to those facilities. Your automobile will also need major modifications to run on other energy sources.
Exempting Ethanol & Bio Diesel from some of the taxes at the pump was the cheapest & best way to reduce the price at the pump & our dependence on foreign oil other than drilling for more here at home. The ethanol tax cut reduced the taxes everyone paid at the pump since every gallon of gasoline contained at least 10% ethanol.
Congress sunset the ethanol tax cut at the end of 2011. See the sudden gas price reversal & spike since new years in the chart below. That is a direct result of higher taxes per gallon & falling ethanol competition. Gasoline prices continue to spiral as ethanol production has dropped every since this tax hike on new years day.
Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Ethanol production in the U.S. fell 0.7 percent to 934,000 barrels a day, the lowest level since Nov. 25, according to an Energy Department report.
The third consecutive weekly drop matches the longest such streak since the period ended Sept. 23. Stockpiles climbed 1.4 percent to 19.8 million barrels, the highest level since the week ended May 27, the department said in a report released today in Washington. Inventories have swelled six straight weeks, the longest streak since Jan. 21, 2011.
Wholesale Ethanol Price Chart
Wholesale Gasoline Price Chart
