President Trump, ethanol is bad for your voters
by The Washington Examiner | May 12, 2017
“Ethanol is here to stay,” newly confirmed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced last weekend, “and we’re going to work for new technologies to be more efficient.”
Perdue said this flanked by two Republican Iowa lawmakers, wearing a pin that should win an award for best or most obscure special-interest lobbying swag. It read, “Don’t mess with the RFS,” referring to the federal requirement that the nation’s gasoline supply be diluted with massive amounts of ethanol — 19.3 billion gallons of the stuff annually.
In an actual market, in which producers and consumers chose for themselves, demand for ethanol would be a tiny fraction of that vast amount, which is why the ethanol industry is so eager to keep the boondoggle in place. It insists that the public be obliged to buy its product. It’s a license to print money at the expense of taxpayers, drivers and citizens.