Bipartisan Bill to Eliminate Corn Ethanol Mandate introduced

[h2ofwlr]

Dec 12 2013
Feinstein, Coburn Intro Bipartisan Bill to Eliminate Corn Ethanol Mandate
Washington—Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and eight cosponsors today introduced the Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act of 2013. The bill eliminates the corn ethanol mandate within the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires annual increases in the amount of renewable fuel that must be blended into the total volume of gasoline refined and consumed in the United States.

Cosponsors of the bill are Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Bob Corker, (R-Tenn.), Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.).

Senator Feinstein said: “I am pleased to join Senator Coburn and others on a bill to eliminate the federal corn ethanol mandate from the Renewable Fuel Standard, while maintaining provisions designed to grow the low-carbon biofuel industry. Under the corn ethanol mandate in the RFS, roughly 44 percent of U.S. corn is diverted from food to fuel, pushing up the cost of food and animal feed and damaging the environment. Oil companies are also unable to blend more corn ethanol into gasoline without causing problems for automobiles, boats and other vehicles. I strongly support requiring a shift to low-carbon advanced biofuel, including biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol and other revolutionary fuels. But a corn ethanol mandate is simply bad policy.”

Senator Coburn said: “The time to end the corn ethanol mandate has arrived. This misguided policy has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, increased fuel prices and made our food more expensive. Eliminating this mandate will let market forces, rather than political and parochial forces, determine how to diversify fuel supplies in an ever-changing marketplace. I’m grateful my colleagues on both sides on the aisle are prepared to take this long-overdue step to protect consumers and taxpayers from artificially high fuel and food prices.”

The Renewable Fuel Standard, first enacted in 2005, requires refiners and blenders to use 16.55 billion gallons of renewable fuel in 2013. More than 13 billion gallons of this total will be met by the use of corn ethanol, a level that will increase in subsequent years.

There are two key problems with continuing to mandate the consumption of more and more corn ethanol each year:

Corn consumption: Approximately 44 percent of the U.S. corn crop is now used to produce ethanol, artificially inflating food and feed prices while damaging the environment.
Blend wall: As gasoline consumption declines, refiners face a “blend wall” when the RFS mandate exceeds the limit at which ethanol can be blended into the fuel supply, determined to be 10 percent of total gasoline consumption.
The Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act of 2013 solves both problems by removing the top-line mandate for renewable fuels, while leaving mandates for non-corn ethanol advanced biofuels untouched.

This action eliminates the unnecessary pressure on corn prices, allowing the multi-billion dollar corn ethanol industry to compete directly with oil based on price and quality, not mandates.

The reduction of total RFS-mandated volumes would also eliminate the threat of the blend wall.

Refiners will continue to blend corn ethanol into the fuel supply in the absence of a mandate, as ethanol is the preferred octane booster used to increase the efficiency of gasoline. Even without a mandate for its use, the economic benefits of mixing ethanol into gasoline would remain.

This proposal has strong support from the prepared food industry; dairy; beef; poultry; oil and gas; engine manufacturers; boaters; hunger relief organizations; and environmental groups. A list of endorsing organizations can be found here.


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Personally I dislike her because of so many of her leftist politics and anti gun legislation. But I do support that corn based ethanol price supports be eliminated. I am for switch grass based ethanol.

[lanyard]

The other side has a perspective, too: http://www.mncorn.org/dont-gut-rfs

[h2ofwlr]

Imagine that, Big AG and corporate farming has concerns... All they are concerned about is making $ including Govt handouts.

[triplecurler]

Using food for gas just seemed counter-productive. Nothing against farmers since they are smarter then myself and know where to get government hand outs.

[lanyard]

So, if you have an expanding world population that is increasingly energy dependent, and we can easily agree that oil won't last forever, and coal is REALLY dirty, and Nuclear is just scary... and I tell you we can make lights work, plug in your car, etc. from a potato..... you wouldn't fund Potato Electric Crop for some period of time to see if it worked at scale?

I'm not disagreeing the gov't was a bunch of morons, and the Corn/Soy lobby aren't culpable for over promising outcomes, but there is a larger system at work: powering the needs, economy, and health of the globe.

The number one problem that will NOT be addressed is there are about 4 billion too many people on this planet and not enough people are capable of fending for themselves. Hunt, fish, garden? Good luck. The energy sucked by keeping people alive is increasing every day.

Biotch all you want about BIG Ag, BIG Oil, whatever.... due to shear velocity they could have their total mass cut by 50% and still kick everyone's ass in a race.

Wind, solar, etc. offer alternatives, but cannot produce enough energy per footprint to offset oil/coal. "Growables" take more energy to input than output. And until electric can be produced from non-emitting sources, the electric car is dirtier per mile driven than your Ford Fusion.

Yes, the ethanol experiment should be doomed. But the resulting cash savings should be reinvested. The challenge is, the places with the resources to invest with any scale and ability to bring to market are BIG Energy......

We're all gonna die. Just a matter of how fast.

[Quack]

Couple points . . .

You realize the world population wouldn't continue to grow if "we" didn't continue to increase food production, right? Harsh, but true.

Second, I occasionally listen to NPR (when I'm sick of the same 6 songs on the radio and Garage Logic isn't on) and just yesterday I heard a scientist admit that fossil fuels are CHEAP and ABUNDANT.

Don't subsidize energy production at all. Let the economics play out. As long as fossils are CHEAP AND ABUNDANT, let them ride. As they become less cheap and abundant, other methods will become the economic winner.

The earth has existed for millions or billions of years, even with "evil destructive humans". Are we really going to destroy it in a matter of a hundred or couple hundred? No.

[lanyard]

We must also realize that wealth, including yours, wouldn't continue to grow if we didn't have an expanding world population......

Every risk is an opportunity to be capitalized. What regulation should do is stop allowing the creation of risks for capitalization... however, then there wouldn't be a need for nanny state government which is funded by the taxes made from selling things to problems that wouldn't exist.

See: "A virus has been found on your computer (we put it there), click here to take it off for $19.99"

"We've polluted the stream.... fortunately, we have invented a machine to clean it and it will only cost you $XX,XXX to get the stream clean again..."

[Nershi]

I can't find the link anymore but I saw a CBS news clip a couple years ago of a guy that figured out how to run his Toyota on water. He converted his car and was filling it up with distilled water for fuel. He sold his patent to GM and apparently they didn't want to utilize it....I wonder why? Big oil have anything to do with it?

As for Ethanol I would love to see it eliminated all together. It is terrible for engines and the environment.

Supposedly we have the ability to feed the world with the bread basket of America. Instead we use corn to make fuel and pay farmers not to farm to keep prices in check. Makes a lot of sense to me.