Reason.tv’s Drew Carey Project Episode 18: Ethanol - Silly Senator, Corn is for Food!
Posted on September 11th, 2008 by bile Tags: biofuel, Charles Grassley, corn, Drew Carey, ethanol, food, food crisis, foreign oil, Iowa, Nick Gillespie, Paul Feine, renewable energy source, Ronald BaileyEthanol advocates claim that the biofuel is a cheap, renewable energy source that reduces pollution and our dependence on foreign oil. It sounds too good to be true—and it is.
Ethanol, especially the corn-based variety, is bad for taxpayers, bad for consumers, bad for the environment, and horrible for the world’s poor. In fact, even environmentalists are critical of ethanol subsidies these days. The ethanol craze has distorted markets and increased the price of food worldwide. The only people who still support ethanol subsidies are the ethanol producers—and politicians from both sides of the aisle. Together, they make sure the subsidies keep coming.
In a recent interview about the current food crisis, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said, “If part of our problem is that the Chinese are going to eat meat and you’ve got to have corn and soybeans to feed the Chinese their meat, then why isn’t it just as legitimate for the Chinese to go back and eat rice as it is for us to change our policy on corn to ethanol?”
Let them eat rice? So that American taxpayers can continue to pay people to turn corn into fuel?
Silly senator, corn is for food.
This seven-and-a-half-minute video explores the case against ethanol subsidies. Hosted by reason’s Nick Gillespie and featuring Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey, it was produced by Paul Feine and PF Bentley.
For an audio podcast version, go here.
3 Responses to “Reason.tv’s Drew Carey Project Episode 18: Ethanol - Silly Senator, Corn is for Food!”
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September 11th, 2008 at 10:12 am
way to completely miss the point, Nick.
September 15th, 2008 at 9:58 am
It is amazing that the internet allows this type of information to live and breathe. The folks at Reason.TV should be a bit ashamed of their lack of concern for facts and spending more than 10 minutes to put this together. If it just boils down to subsidies, which is where this really ends up in the end, then let’s break it down a bit.
The ethanol subsidy, the blender’s credit, also known as the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC), is given to the blender of record. This is typically not the ethanol producer, but the petroleum marketer who blends gasoline with ethanol for retail sale. Seems a bit odd to call it the ethanol subsidy some days… On the other hand, the petroleum industry actually receives the ethanol subsidy and has been subsidized on their own for nearly 100 years and is set to receive nearly $40B in taxpayer payments in the next 5 years, despite record shattering profits. I guess by the logic of Reason.TV, we should immediately quit refining gasoline too.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:37 am
The government should not be subsidizing anyone. The fact that the blenders get the subsidy insentivizes them to use an inefficient fuel which raises prices. Regardless of the subsidy the blend is required by law. And ethanol corn does get direct subsidies. These regulations and subsidies are causing shortages on food, raising food costs, and misusing resources, raising energy costs.