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Post by jeffolie on Jan 4, 2012 10:08:40 GMT -6
End of Corn Ethanol? I listed these two articles in the morning reads, but I am so delighted over this that I had to make sure you did not miss this: Congress has apparently failed to extend the corn ethanol subsidy, a terrible energy idea that has subsidized the burning of food/corn for 30-years. It is unclear whether this has simply lapsed, and has not been renewed yet or if the wasteful, engine damaging, negative-net-energy Corn Ethanol nightmare is finally over. Here is the Detroit News: The United States has ended a 30-year tax subsidy for corn-based ethanol that cost taxpayers $6 billion annually, and ended a tariff on imported Brazilian ethanol. Congress adjourned for the year on Friday, failing to extend the tax break that’s drawn a wide variety of critics on Capitol Hill, including Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Critics also have included environmentalists, frozen food producers, ranchers and others. The policies have helped shift millions of tons of corn from feedlots, dinner tables and other products into gas tanks. www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/12/end-of-corn-ethanol/
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Post by jeffolie on Jan 4, 2012 13:57:24 GMT -6
May 27, 2011 Romney Hearts Ethanol Subsidies. DES MOINES — It was an odd setting for a policy pronouncement, but on the sidewalk outside the Historical Building here, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney embraced ethanol subsidies. It came just days after and blocks from where his rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Tim Pawlenty, said the subsidies should be phased out. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holds an ear of corn during a visit Friday to AgVision Agriculture Software in Ankeny, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)“I support the subsidy of ethanol,” he told an Iowa voter. “I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution for this country.” Iowa leads the nation in the production of corn, a main source of ethanol. Mr. Romney and a crowd that had come to see his first Iowa speech of the year had been evacuated from the Historical Building by a fire alarm. Amid the tumult, a woman asked if he was going to take any questions. He said given the circumstances, the question and answer part of the program appeared out of the question. So she presented him a typed out note demanding his position on ethanol, one she had intended to present at the presidential forum that had just abruptly ended. His answer, delivered without hesitation, adhered to the orthodox position of politicians vying for Iowa votes. But it came just days after former Minnesota Gov. Pawlenty officially announced his candidacy and said the nation could no longer afford to subsidize ethanol, a position that he said backed up his claim to be the truth teller in the race. That leaves the Republican primary contest with a peculiar situation: Mr. Pawlenty, a candidate who needs a strong showing, and possibly an outright victory, in Iowa is bucking a popular position. Mr. Romney, who may not contest Iowa as he focuses on other early states, has embraced most Iowans’ position. blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/05/27/romney-hearts-ethanol-subsidies/
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jan 4, 2012 23:40:51 GMT -6
Here is the Detroit News: The United States has ended a 30-year tax subsidy for corn-based ethanol that cost taxpayers $6 billion annually, and ended a tariff on imported Brazilian ethanol. Though I can go along with ending the corn subsidy, the "tariff" is an entirely different story. How could Congress possibly vote to end a "Tariff" on anything at this point in time? We're getting KILLED by imports, which are causing massive unemployment, underemployment, and wage suppression in this country. Anyone voting to end a Tariff should be thrown out of office. We need more Tariffs, not less.
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Post by graybeard on Jan 5, 2012 7:32:24 GMT -6
Do we have tariffs on imported gasoline? That's now the competitor for Brazil's extra ethanol.
I sure hope the subsidy is ended, but big agra doesn't believe it. Iowa farmland is now selling for over $10K an acre, a price that can't be sustained without ethanol subsidies.
GB
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jan 5, 2012 12:40:35 GMT -6
If we don't price foreign ethanol out of the US market with Tariffs, there will never be any incentive to produce ethanol from other sources. And there will be a reduced incentive to produce energy from other alternate sources.
And if low-price foreign ethanol displaces gasoline as fuel, we'll still be dependent on foreign sources for energy.
In addition, Brazilian ethanol is produced by low-wage workers, just like everything that comes out of China. If we don't put Tariffs on goods produced by exploited low-wage foreign labor, eventually nothing will be produced in our own country.
Stop the subsidies, not the Tariffs.
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Post by graybeard on Jan 6, 2012 23:08:05 GMT -6
Ethanol is an inferior motor fuel. It especially makes no sense to use corn for ethanol, as you get only one crop a year.
Meanwhile sugar cane for ethanol grows year round nearer the equator. Brazil made it a national policy to get off imported oil after the 1973 Arab embargo, so they mandated and subsidized ethanol, both in farming and vehicle designs. Since then, however, they have made huge discoveries of oil.
GB
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Post by jeffolie on Jan 7, 2012 9:32:27 GMT -6
Ethanol is an inferior motor fuel. It especially makes no sense to use corn for ethanol, as you get only one crop a year. Meanwhile sugar cane for ethanol grows year round nearer the equator. Brazil made it a national policy to get off imported oil after the 1973 Arab embargo, so they mandated and subsidized ethanol, both in farming and vehicle designs. Since then, however, they have made huge discoveries of oil. GB Brazil has a currency problem as a trading country it find that: the REAL is too strong LOL Brazil's politics and corruption favored developing land and ruining rain forests to plant sugar cane, etc. Now, Brazil complains that its products are unfairly priced including tariffs against ethanol by America.
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