Our View: Admit ethanol defeat
‘In politics, never retreat, never retract, never admit a mistake.”
If that advice from Napoleon Bonaparte is taken to heart, the United States will never extricate itself from the failed experiment of turning food into fuel. A well-intentioned effort to ease our dependence on foreign oil and quell environmental damage has yielded the unintended consequences of food riots abroad, rising grocery prices at home and counterproductive land-use practices.
Recognizing this, 24 U.S. Senate Republicans have called on the Environmental Protection Agency to forestall efforts to greatly expand the production of ethanol. Congress adopted an energy bill last year that called for a five-fold increase by 2022 and it included large subsidies to prime the pump. In turn, farmers planted the largest corn crop in 60 years, crowding out other crops, such as soybeans and oats. And because less corn is going toward animal feed, the prices of meat and poultry have also risen.
The Department of Agriculture estimates that 20 percent of the food-price surge is pegged to ethanol production. Congress has ever-so-slightly cut ethanol subsidies in the current farm bill, but the prospect of further Corn Belt tightening is unlikely in an election year.
Still, the nation needs to face up to what looks to be a failed experiment. Even if the 2022 mandates were reached, ethanol would still make up only 22 percent of the nation’s fuel mix. Even if we accepted higher food prices, there isn’t enough productive land to increase ethanol production by much more. Plus, recent studies show that the energy required to produce ethanol coupled with carbon-depleting land-use practices make it an environmental loser.
Biofuels recently burst upon the scene as an answer to politicians’ prayers. Who wouldn’t swoon over a product that could lessen dependence on Middle East oil and bring together rural and environmental interests?
Now, it looks like it was too good to be true. Corn-based ethanol is inefficient and highly dependent upon government subsidies. Powerful lobbies have sprouted around this industry, which got its start during the oil shocks of the 1970s. But other plant-based sources, such as switchgrass and cellulosic ethanol, hold more promise. That’s where we need to concentrate more taxpayer dollars.
Our nation needs an aggressive effort to develop energy alternatives, whether that’s renewable sources such as solar and wind or old standbys such as hydropower and nuclear. But we also need to put each alternative to a cost-benefit test. If that were done with corn ethanol, it would fail.
It’s time to admit it.