Ethanol subsidies are not to be touched. That is the old paradigm, but Ted Cruz says they must go.
As the Iowa primaries begin to put the focus on the front runners, the question arises, who are the pandering politicians who will continue the ruse on America. See below for the ethanol scam perpetuated by lying bought off politicians who don’t give a good God Damn about you. They are bought, time is now to out them. By the way Ted Cruz against ethanol subsidies.
The corn ethanol industry has received more than its fair share of subsidies over the past 30 years. Through federal tax credits, loan guarantees, grants and other subsidies, billions of taxpayer dollars have been squandered on an industry that relentlessly seeks additional special interest carve-outs. A nearly identical tax credit to the one proposed by the president – the “Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit” – has been available to gasoline stations dispensing 85 percent ethanol.
It expired last year but has a history of being renewed in “tax extenders” packages. A federal Renewable Fuel Standard also mandates the use of 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol by 2015. While the biofuels industry as a whole was intended to help achieve American energy independence, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and spur rural economic development, the corn ethanol industry has fallen short of achieving these goals while spurring numerous unintended consequences and long-term liabilities that have resulted in more harm than good.
So it was great news that the (otherwise terrible) 2014 farm bill (officially the Agricultural Act of 2014) prevents the mature corn ethanol industry from receiving subsidies to purchase pumps dispensing higher blends of corn ethanol.
Now for the bad news. Less than a month after signing the farm bill into law, the president proposed new subsidies for ethanol blender pumps in his FY 2015 budget proposal. The overall budget was released last Tuesday, with detailed back up documents following in the last few days. Buried on page 158 of the “Analytical Perspectives” document, released Monday, is up to $200 million in new advanced energy manufacturing tax credits for the “construction of infrastructure that contributes to networks of refueling stations that serve alternative fuels,” or in other words, more subsidies for corn ethanol blender pumps and other alternative fuel infrastructure projects. Such is the power of the corn ethanol lobby.
FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Mark down May 29 as the date when the last tether connecting ethanol subsidies to reality came unhitched, and the fuel made from corn and tax dollars achieved a kind of postmodern perfection. On the same day the Obama Administration conceded that the U.S. auto fleet cannot practically consume enough ethanol to fulfill Congress’s quotas, it announced a new program so motorists can consume more ethanol.
In other words, the point of the subsidy is the subsidy, and therefore the U.S. must subsidize ethanol because the U.S. already subsidizes ethanol. Once in place, such self-referential mandates appear to be eternal.
The 2007 energy bill’s renewable fuel standard requires certain annual volumes of ethanol to be bootlegged into the U.S. gasoline supply, but for years the mandate has crashed into the “blend wall.” Ethanol is corrosive, and gallons of conventional gas with concentrations of the stuff higher than 10% damage the engines and fuel systems of most of the cars and trucks on the road today.
The problem is that Americans aren’t guzzling enough gallons to achieve Congress’s mandates at E-10—that is, 10% ethanol, 90% gas. Either we need to drive more in less fuel-efficient cars, consuming more overall. Or the concentration of ethanol in a given gallon needs to rise, risking accidents, breakdowns and valve, pump, cylinder and injector replacements rarely covered by consumer warranties. For model years 2001 through 2011, no car makers allow blends above E-10, and a little fewer than half say it is safe to fill up with E-15 for the last two model years.
To avoid filling this ethanol junkyard but also to avoid displeasing the corn lobby, the Environmental Protection Agency simply refused to finalize the quotas for 2014 and 2015. So the EPA has finally admitted in a regulation that “due to constraints in the fuel market to accommodate increasing volumes of ethanol, along with limits on the availability of non-ethanol renewable fuels,” the volume targets “cannot be achieved.”
The EPA thus proposed quotas that are 3.75 billion gallons below the statutory minimums for 2014, 2015 and 2016. Renewable Fuels
The bottom line here is simple. Over the past twenty years China has accumulated a couple of trillion dollars of our money; shipping slave produced goods to the United States in return they purchased foreign companies worldwide.
