Posted on 08/09/2012 8:08:44 AM PDT by AT7Saluki
Livestock farmers and ranchers seeing their feed costs rise because of the worst drought in a quarter-century are demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency waive production requirements for corn-based ethanol.
The Obama administration sees no need for a waiver, siding with corn growers many of them in presidential election battleground states Iowa and Ohio who continue to support the mandate.
"If not now, when?" Randy Spronk, a Minnesota pork farmer, said of the EPA's authority to defer the ethanol production requirement when it threatens to severely harm the economy of a state or region. "Everyone should feel the pain of rationing."
Spronk, who is president-elect of the National Pork Producers Council, said livestock producers will have to reduce their herds and flocks because feed is becoming scarce and too expensive. Cattlemen and chicken farmers have the same concern.
"We do support the American ethanol industry," said Kristina Butts, executive director of legislative affairs at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "All we are asking for is that competition for that bushel of corn be on a level playing field."
(Excerpt) Read more at ibj.com ...
We the public should weigh in on this issue. Ethanol is going to drive up our food prices and the price of fuel. It is a waste of energy. It will also land on the heads of the poor in our country and worldwide. The drought is a natural disaster...ethanol is a man made disaster.
There is nothing wrong with the moderate consumption of ethanol by humans but it’s a waste to serve it to automobiles.
As we have found some great alternatives via Fracking and even much larger deposits of methane enough to last us hundreds of years, it would seen to be the time to bury this ethanol crap.
It damages older fuel systems, gives less MPGs, causes valve damage to engines susceptible to higher temperatures, delivers less power and lower BTUs and uses a bunch of energy to produce.
And gee ethanol also uses valuable land which could be growing food.
We could start TODAY to use more natural gas in vehicles and that would more than offset the 10% addition of ethanol to the fuel supply. Today you can, given the RIGHT CAR (thanks to the vile EPA’s insane testing requirements) buy a conversion kit which allows you at the flip of a switch to go back and forth between Natural Gas and Gasoline.
If we started today, more cars would be dual fuel in a year and more gas stations would be converted to dual supply. When running on Natural Gas you are using 100% NG and 0% gasoline.
This is OUR fuel not some sand monkey’s with desires to kill us all.
Great points. Environmentalists and others have pushed the Ethanol push although ironically, it is an incentive for growers to bulldozer forest for it’s very production. Oxymoron of epic proportions.
Starvation is as good a way as any.
What is more important, to have food or crappy fuel? Dropping ethanol would boost gas mileage. It should be illegal for cars to drink until they are 18 years old.
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