Killing Ethanol Subsidy A Worthy Goal

The Senate voted down a bill which would have removed the tax subsidy on ethanol this week. You would think the Tea Baggers would have embraced this bill. Even John McCain and Jon Kyle, Arizona's two raging right wingers, voted for it. The bill referred to ending the tax credits for blenders of ethanol and gasoline. Adding ethanol to gasoline is desirable as it reduces our need for imported oil. The only problem is where most of our ethanol comes from.  Here in the United States ethanol is made from corn. Corn is a poor material from which to make fuel. Making it requires a horrendous amounts of water, our most precious resource,  and uses more fuel to make than it produces. If it weren't subsidized it would never become economically viable. Why do we do this? It was part of George W. Bush's gift in his last election to the Iowa corn farmers along with a tariff on imported ethanol from Brazil. Brazil uses a lot of ethanol as a fuel for cars.

The bill, as I understand it, made no mention of the tariff on imported ethanol from Brazil, where ethanol has become the alternate fuel of choice. Brazilians can make it far cheaper from sugar cane. These two subsidies represent a large reduction to the national budget that we can do without. Everyone should want to get on this band wagon, except, of course, Iowa corn farmers. With the warming climate, vanishing water resources, and drought in many parts of the world, making corn into fuel makes no sense. It removes land, water and fuel from growing food, with a growing population we certainl don't need. 

We certainly need to encourage alternative fuel sources but the money could be put to a better use developing alternatives with some hope of becoming viable such as the genetically modified microbes on which Exxon Mobile are experimenting, which is four times more efficient than corn in making ethanol.