The Ethanol Apologists

CounterPunch

The outrages of the ethanol mandates are growing by the day.

Last week, a study funded by American beef, pork and chicken producers estimated that the total cost to taxpayers of the corn ethanol mandates now exceeds $33 billion per year. That’s equal to about $106 per American citizen. While the soaring cost of the ethanol are maddening, even more galling are the continuing claims by a group of ethanol apologists who insist that the ethanol industry is having no effect on food prices. Those spurious claims are being made at the same time that the World Bank is warning of a global food crisis and unrest is increasing in several countries due to soaring food prices.

In early March, Robert Zubrin, a major proponent of biofuels and the author of the book, “Energy Victory,” wrote an oped in which he declared that “you can’t blame ethanol for food price increases.” Earlier this month, Sean O’Hanlon, the executive director of the American Biofuels Council, when asked how biofuels are affecting good prices, replied, “They really don’t.” He went on to declare “Ultimately, there is more food available because of biofuels rather than less.”

In an April 11 letter to the New York Times, Ron Litterer, the president of the National Corn Growers Association, said that U.S. farmers are “producing enough corn for all needs” and that when it comes to food price increases, it is wrong to cast “ethanol as the devil.”

On April 15, after several foreign leaders blamed America’s ethanol mandates for pushing food prices higher, the New York Times quoted Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican and longtime ethanol backer, as saying it was a “a big joke” to blame ethanol. He then said none of those foreigners would eat corn if it was placed in front of them.

Several factors are driving food prices higher including growing global grain demand, crop failures in other countries, rising energy prices, and the weak dollar. That said, its abundantly obvious that the ethanol apologists are denying reality. There’s simply no question that the key variable in the food price equation–and the one that could have been easily avoided–is the ethanol scam.

The numbers tell a clear–and disturbing — story.

Since 2000, the amount of corn used to make ethanol has increased nearly six fold. By next year, according to the National Corn Growers Association, some 4 billion bushels of corn–about one-third of the expected crop — will be used to make motor fuel. …