Tag: Canola

The proposed action would not affect corn or other ethanol production and blending requirements, despite growing problems with incorporating more ethanol into gasoline. However, anyone who thinks reality, logic and common sense do or should play an essential role in public policy decisions has an abysmal understanding of how the Washington, DC Swamp operates. Several US Senators threatened to block confirmation of President Trump’s EPA nominees unless the agency abandons its plans. Even Senator Joni Ernst (also R-Iowa) is on the nominee blockade bandwagon. Indeed, corn grown on acreage equivalent to her entire state (36 million acres) is converted to ethanol every year. These senators (and many House and Senate colleagues) are determined that ethanol, biodiesel and other biofuel mandates and “targets” will always and only go in one direction: upward. But it has become a major farm subsidy program – and a vital campaign contributions program. In the case of ethanol, it involves growing corn that requires millions of acres of land, billions of gallons of water, and vast quantities of pesticides, fertilizers, tractor fuel and natural gas … to produce energy that drives up food prices, damages small engines, and gets one-third fewer miles per gallon than gasoline. The mandates are also well above the amounts of biodiesel we need.