Earth Equity News

On Corn Ethanol, a Pox on All Your Houses. Posted by Tom Philpott, Gristmill, August 7, 2008. "The U.S. [Renewable Fuel Standard, which mandates that 9 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol be blended into the fuel supply this year, rising to 15 billion by 2015 and holding steady at that rate until 2022,] has been pretty definitively linked to a rise in global food prices that could push 100 million additional people into poverty... Consider also that corn is an extremely heavy user of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, which emits a greenhouse gas called nitrous oxide [that] the EPA itself terms... 'about 310 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.' Finally, consider that every gallon of ethanol that gets mixed into the fuel supply costs taxpayers $0.51... Given the mounting challenges [we face as a nation]... do we really have $4.5 billion-$7.5 billion to drop on a program that most serious people consider environmentally worthless, at best? Yet [EPA chief Stephen L.] Johnson [sees] nothing wrong... Of course, getting a ringing endorsement from Johnson on environmental grounds is like having Al Capone sign off on the legality of your gun-running operation. Guy's got a bit of a credibility problem. [And] of course, no one really challenged the RFS on environmental grounds. Texas Gov. Rick Perry requested the RFS waiver on economic grounds -- specifically, on grounds that higher corn prices are crimping the profits of industrial meat producers. 'Governor Hairdo,' as he's known in certain Austin circles, learned crony capitalism at the knee of his predecessor, George W. Bush... From the Houston Chronicle: Poultry producer Lonnie 'Bo' Pilgrim spent more than $9,000 on airfare in June so Gov. Rick Perry could attend a news conference promoting a waiver from federal ethanol mandates that Pilgrim wants. Perry requested the waiver from the [EPA] in April after meeting with Pilgrim in March. The Houston Chronicle reported this month that six days after that March meeting, Pilgrim donated $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association, which Perry heads as chairman. This is one of those pox-on-all-your-houses deals. Yes, we need to gut the RFS. Turning half the U.S. corn crop into car fuel is insane. But we also need to rein in the vast environmental abuses of industrial-meat giants like Pilgrim's Pride."