Saxby Chambliss
Bob Corker

WASHINGTON — Supporters of corn ethanol, once hailed as the country’s salvation from imported oil and its greenhouse gas-spewing ways, now find themselves fending off accusations of triggering a global food crisis.

With commodities prices on the rise and the economy slumping, members of Congress are getting an earful from a variety of groups — the food industry, oil producers and humanitarian agencies, among others — all dogging ethanol as the centerpiece of a flawed energy policy that values fuel over food.

Tennessee and Georgia lawmakers say they’re listening.

“There was not enough discussion about the effect that mandating corn ethanol would have on corn prices,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said of the energy bill passed last year, which he voted for and which requires the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022. “It’s one of those unintended consequences.”

Ethanol critics, pointing to the vast acreage of corn being devoted to ethanol — about a quarter of the total harvested corn crop — say the ethanol mandate is responsible for pushing up the price tag on everything from soda to corn flakes to steak, with ripples being felt worldwide.

Ethanol supporters counter that food prices are being more heavily impacted by other factors, including the skyrocketing cost of oil, the weak dollar and poor weather conditions the past few years.

Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, the ethanol industry’s main lobbying group, said blaming ethanol is a diversion from reducing the country’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“You’ve got to take a couple steps back and look at things in totality and realize that biofuels take up a small role in food,” Mr. Hartwig said. “You can’t grow $2.50 (a bushel) corn on $4.50 (a gallon) diesel.”

Corn costs about $6 a bushel, up 30 percent from last year.

The biofuels industry also argues that ethanol lowers the price of gasoline, thereby keeping fuel costs — and by extension, food costs — lower than they otherwise would be. Removing ethanol from the marketplace, Mr. Hartwig said, would send gas prices at least 15 percent higher.

“If critics were to have their way, they would remove (ethanol) fuel from the marketplace, and the only way to replace that supply is to import more oil,” he said. “It’s a recipe for $5 a gallon gas.”

CORN IN THE CROSSHAIRS

There are 158 ethanol plants in the United States producing 510,000 barrels of fuel a day, with 51 more plants under construction or being planned, according to the American Ethanol Coalition.

Of those, the vast majority are in the corn-rich Midwest. Two are in Tennessee, in Obion and Loudon, on opposite sides of the state, and both use corn as feedstock.

Georgia has three facilities: a corn-fed one in Mitchell County in the Southwest part of the state; another in Soperton, in the middle of the state, that uses pine wood; and a third in Baconton, in Southwest Georgia, that uses beer brewery waste.

Ethanol, the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, is produced as a fuel through the fermentation of plant sugar or starch using enzymes and yeast. Most cars are able to run without any modifications on a mix of 90 percent gasoline and 10 percent ethanol.

The industry has touted ethanol as a preferred alternative fuel because of the high availability of feedstock, primarily corn, which benefits the nation’s farmers as it weans the country off petroleum.

However, critics charge that the ethanol mandate has created unprecedented food inflation while encouraging farmers to plant record acreage of corn, a crop that requires significant energy and fertilizer to grow and transport, blunting the resulting fuel’s environmental benefits.

Groups as disparate as the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the National Restaurant Association, the Heritage Foundation, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association and Oxfam America, an international aid organization, have banded together to lobby members of Congress to consider repealing the ethanol mandate.

“Today, we are faced with a massive biofuels mandate that is unsustainable, untenable and unworkable,” Charles T. Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, testified before a House subcommittee this month.

“We must ensure that we are not forcing our needs for food and fuel to compete against each other,” Washington, D.C., restaurateur Geoff Tracy, a member of the National Restaurant Association, testified this month before a separate House committee.

Corn is a main component in many foods in the form of sweeteners, starch and flour. The crop also is used as feed for poultry and cattle.

A FOCUS ON CELLULOSIC ETHANOL

Tennessee and Georgia lawmakers say they would prefer to see greater investment in ethanol developed from feedstock that is not used as food, such as switchgrass or pine trees, materials that require significantly less fertilizer to grow than corn and are well-suited for growing in the Southeast.

Called cellulosic ethanol, the fuel is made from cellulose, the material found in plant cell walls, and switchgrass holds high potential as an ethanol feedstock because of its high levels of cellulose. Cellulosic ethanol is identical to corn-derived ethanol, though it requires more processing and has yet to be commercialized.

“Ethanol from biomass like switchgrass, which would not be taking from our food supplies, would be a good direction to go,” Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn., said. “Ethanol from grain is a bad idea. If there’s a need for food, that’s our priority.”

Of the 36 billion gallons of ethanol mandated in 2022 by last year’s energy bill, 21 billion gallons must be cellulosic ethanol, which Sen. Corker said is a major reason he supported the bill.

The University of Tennessee has partnered with Boston-based biofuels firm Mascoma to develop a switchgrass-to-ethanol pilot facility near Knoxville.

In Georgia, Range Fuels last year broke ground on the first ethanol plant that will use wood and wood waste from the state’s pine forests and mills as its feedstock. The 20 million gallon-per-year facility is scheduled to open next year.

“We don’t grow corn in the quantities of the Midwest, but we grow pine trees like nobody else,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

The farm bill passed by Congress this month seeks to shift greater attention to cellulosic ethanol by including about $775 million for research and loan guarantees to production facilities, along with a $1.01 per gallon tax credit.

Mr. Hartwig with the Renewable Fuels Association said the cellulosic ethanol incentives in the farm bill are needed to encourage farmers to plant high-cellulose feedstocks such as switchgrass.

“The barrier with cellulosic is the cost (of production), but we’re closer than most people realize,” he said. “To pull out the rug from this growing industry may be penny-wise now but pound-foolish later.”

Tennessee and Georgia lawmakers say they recognize the need for incentives to help the cellulosic ethanol industry gain its footing, though they said they hope the fuel eventually becomes profitable enough to stand on its own without any government assistance.

“I think we have to be careful because subsidies don’t work and price controls don’t work,” said Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn. “In a perfect world, you wouldn’t have them, but if you’re going to have them, let’s increase them on cellulosic and decrease them on corn.”