Posted on 05/11/2008 3:15:50 PM PDT by The_Republican
The time has come for Congress to rethink ethanol, an alternative fuel that has lately fallen from favor. Specifically, it is time to end an outdated tax break for corn ethanol and to call a timeout in the fivefold increase in ethanol production mandated in the 2007 energy bill.
This does not mean that Congress should give up on biofuels as an important part of the effort to reduce the country’s dependency on imported oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What it does mean is that some biofuels are (or are likely to be) better than others, and that Congress should realign its tax and subsidy programs to encourage the good ones. Unlike corn ethanol, those biofuels will not compete for the world’s food supply and will deliver significant reductions in greenhouse gases.
Last year’s energy bill required that 36 billion gallons of biofuels be produced annually by 2022. Of that, 21 billion gallons would be “advanced” biofuels that are still mostly in the experimental stage; the rest would be the corn-based variety beloved by farmers, Midwestern politicians and presidential candidates. This mandate comes on top of a 51-cents-a-gallon subsidy to ethanol blenders enacted when the industry was small and oil prices low.
The industry is no longer small — seven billion gallons and climbing rapidly — and oil is over $120 a barrel, making ethanol not only competitive but a bargain.
Ending the tax subsidy should be easy. Ending the mandate will be tougher, though some members of Congress are showing buyer’s remorse. One reason is the worldwide spike in food prices. That has been driven largely by a huge increase in demand and rising energy costs. The diversion of American corn from food to fuel — about one-fourth of the crop — has not helped.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Good find. Unusually sane and sensible for a NYT editorial.
The next editorial in this logical sequence should be: Rethinking Liberalism.
I don't know what it is, but it will be clean, leave no carbon footprint, cost little, will not affect commodity prices, need no government subsidy, and will be loved by all the children of the world. Imagine a spring time field of wildflowers.
However, until this heavenly source emerges we gotta get off our collective a$$es and exploit the energy technologies we know will work.
Oops. - Seamless 180 degree turn on ethanol while still trying to push the fatally flawed agenda in the same breath.
This does not mean that Congress should give up ...
Yeah. Until the next fiasco resulting from meaningless and ill conceived government intervention into a sector that is working fine without them.
[Somewhere just over the rainbow is a mythical solution to our energy needs. It is only just out of our grasp. I don’t know what it is, but it will be clean, leave no carbon footprint, cost little, will not affect commodity prices, need no government subsidy, and will be loved by all the children of the world. Imagine a spring time field of wildflowers.]
That’s what will happen if the American people are smart enough to elect a Democrat as president this November. On the day after inauguration, the President will reach into the top drawer in his desk in the oval office and take out the magic wand sitting there and then wave it around (Bush was too dumb to know how to use it) and all of the world’s problems will be solved.
But only if a Democrat is elected.
sarcasm off/
Ethanol ping.
Like old Clint Eastwood said in that movie with the ape, Hang on to your ass, Fred. The ethanol plants are beginning to close. Several of them have gone belly up in the last month, and more are expected to.
It will seek its own level.
Rethinking Ethanol??? = DRILL IN ANWR !!
OH NO! I won’t believe it. The Liberal econuts were WRONG!
Gotta hand to those boys, they’re quick on the uptake.
Someone ought to tell them that the guy running in front of the crowd isn’t always a leader. They might be chasing him.
‘Ending the tax subsidy should be easy.’ Does a tin foil hat statement like that really need a comment?
Aw.. let the hungry live on MTBE. The environmentalists and Nytimen have oceans of it left over from THEIR LAST STUPID AIR HEAD MACHINATION!
When are Americans going to make good use of all those beautiful lamp posts?
where they been?
out on the farm we were thinkin’ that two years ago.
Socialism and central planning always fails.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.