Steven Hansen

More Bad News for the Anti-Ethanol Crowd

interesting Bush administration response to the issue of how biofuel production effects the price of fuel in America, and its effect on the prices of American and worldwide food.

the main thrust of this report was to say if you do anything to disturb the status quo (making 9 billion gallons of ethanol from corn and soybeans this year, and increasing production every year thereafter) - you are going to pay more for gasoline from 25 cents to 35 cents per gallon. further, this report said the food price increase for the consumer (based on cpi calculations) would add less than 0.7% to the cpi for all foods.

let me think. the price of corn and soybeans have doubled in two years. a large minority of the world population barely has enough income for food and the price of a staple in many of their diets has doubled.

i agree with the report that we do not want to be hasty in making any changes before we educate ourselves on biofuels. i was a big proponent of biofuels. but this year has opened my eyes to the effects on the food prices due to using food we eat to make gasoline.

why not remove the $0.51 per gallon ethanol blenders tax credit for starters, and let market forces decide whether we should eat corn and soy, or burn it in our cars.