Burning food instead of eating it makes no sense
May 6th, 2008 by Brendan SteinhauserBen Lieberman over at the Heritage Foundation has a smart piece about the biofuels mandates and their harmful effects. Here is a summary of his argument:
The very food-related problems that we see today are much like the hypothesized future ones that were supposed to be caused by global warming. That global warming policy is more likely a contributor than global warming itself is a strong enough reason to rethink this policy.
For this reason, Congress should repeal its current biofuels mandate. In addition, as the Senate soon takes up debate on S. 2191, the major global warming bill, it should heed the biofuels lesson and avoid any measures that may also prove to be more trouble than they are worth.
The farm bill and the energy bill both contain disturbing provisions that make no sense, especially given the food and fuel costs the world is facing. Congress should end mandates and subsidies for corn-based ethanol and allow the market to allocate food and energy. The government is distorting markets, and it should stop making things worse.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
No burning a crop of corn does not make sense when you do the math. 1 Car uses 1 gallon of gas every 25 miles on average and travels 2,000 miles per month that is 80 gallons of gas per month. How many ears of corn will be needed to fuel one car per month? That is a lot of corn!
I don’t know if anyone noticed but, food prices have gone up and grain is one of the main neccessities for farm animals which is not being produced at the same rate due to the high cost of transportation. Farmers are selling their land to housing developers and less food is being produced including meats. Grain costs are too high as there is a low inventory. Grain is the main ingredient to breads and other food staples. Wonder how a $2.00 loaf of bread is now up to $4.00? Milk has gone up for the same reason - it is connected to the cost of grain for the cows.
Wouldn’t it be simpler if we encouraged food growth? Tax breaks for farmers meaning no tax on farm lands to lower the comsumer costs and encourage abundance? What about tax breaks for consumers who choose to grow their own produce? Or street trees to be specified and fruit baring trees. Starvation still exists in America, why not do something positive to decrease that.
Corn does not grow year-round how can it be produced in the abundance that we would require to fuel all of our vehicles in America? Why not save fuel all together by developing more solar generated vehicles and placing solar panels in cities to generate the power we need?