WASHINGTON — Subsidies for domestically produced corn ethanol and tariffs on ethanol imports should be eliminated when those provisions expire in coming years, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said Tuesday.
With energy and gas prices on the rise — and the cost of food along with them — Sen. Corker said corn-based ethanol should not be propped up with price supports, which he said ultimately hurt U.S. consumers.
“We need to go back to a market-based implementation,” he said. “I have championed that since the day I got here. The fact that we don’t allow ethanol into our country without tariffs jacks up the cost of fuel.”
Sen. Corker was among 24 Republican senators, including GOP presidential nominee John McCain, to sign a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson urging him to take ethanol’s impacts on domestic and worldwide energy and food prices into consideration.
EPA officials could not be reached for comment.
The National Farmers Union, however, disputed that ethanol is to blame for rising food prices and said changing the ethanol mandate would result in higher gas prices.
The energy bill that passed Congress last year mandated the increase in the use of corn-based ethanol to 15 billion gallons by 2015 but gave the EPA the authority to waive the mandate or structure it differently in the case of “adverse unintended effects.”
“American families are feeling the financial strain of these food-to-fuel mandates in the grocery aisle and are growing concerned about the emerging environmental concerns of growing corn-based ethanol,” the senators wrote. “It is essential for the EPA to respond quickly to the consequences of these mandates.”
The lawmakers cited Bureau of Labor Statistics figures showing food inflation is at 4.9 percent this year as demand for ethanol drives up the price of corn, which impacts the cost of agricultural products ranging from sweeteners to livestock feed.
Tom Buis, president of the National Farmers Union, said increased demand for agriculture commodities, higher incomes in developing countries and rising petroleum costs, among other factors, are to blame for food inflation.
“It is no wonder that food costs are increasing when, in the last seven years, gasoline prices have increased 198 percent, diesel fuel has increased almost 250 percent and crude oil has increased 453 percent,” Mr. Buis said.
Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who also signed the letter to the EPA, said he believes cellulosic ethanol and biofuels would be better long-term investments as alternative fuels.
“I am concerned that inflationary pressure on food will only escalate in the coming months and could be further complicated by severe weather,” he said.
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