Eliminating the ethanol mandate
What if we could find a way to conserve the last 30 million acres of prairie and put money into the pockets of motorists without expanding government?
Low fuel efficiency, high cost, engine corrosion, rising food prices, world famine, prairie grassland losses and sinking water tables — these are some unintended consequences that the government’s ethanol mandate has spawned in recent years.
Now, a coalition of consumer advocates, conservationists, oil companies, grocery manufacturers and humanitarian advocates is urging Congress to roll back the renewable fuels standard that was adopted in 2007 with the goal of reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. A decade ago, when it was thought we were running out of oil, imports were nearly 70 percent of oil consumption. Today, oil imports are down to 45 percent and continue to fall.
What’s important to recognize is that the U.S. is energy secure, to the point that we’re actually exporting more than 1 million barrels of oil a day. This change of fortune can be attributed to the shale revolution, which has turned the U.S. into a major oil producer. Gone are the days when OPEC had the U.S. in its grip.
Yet the renewable fuels standard remains in place, requiring oil refiners to blend ethanol into gasoline (E10 is 10 percent ethanol, 90 percent gasoline). The renewable fuels standard mandates an increase in ethanol production from 4 billion gallons in 2005, rising to 16 billion gallons in 2017 and 36 billion gallons by 2022.
Already half of the nation’s corn crop is being gobbled up for ethanol. And some of the nation’s last remaining prairie grasslands are being plowed under for additional corn production, resulting in a loss of habitat for ducks and pheasants, monarch butterflies and honey bees. The loss of grasslands has been greatest near ethanol refineries.
What if we could find a way to conserve the last 30 million acres of prairie and put money into the pockets of motorists without expanding government?
Think about it: Eliminating the ethanol mandate would achieve both. It would nullify the claim that ethanol is needed to reduce reliance on imported oil. And it would take away the motive for converting prairie into cornfields.
The ethanol mandate is obsolete. E10 has lower energy content than straight gasoline. Its use has meant that motorists must fill up their tanks more often. Even worse is its cousin, E15, which can corrode engines and fuel tanks as well as lawnmowers and other equipment that runs on biofuels.
Does repealing the renewable fuels standard stand a snowball’s chance in the partisan hell of Congress? Its main weakness is that no one stands to make a killing on it.
But ethanol might be losing its grip on the body politic. Eliminating the renewable fuels standard is a question of fairness.
The choice is between an artificial, demand-creating mechanism for ethanol production at the expense of people who need to drive their cars and buy food for the dinner table, and a world where the fundamentals of modern life — fuel, food, transportation and energy — remain affordable for one and all.