Congress intends to maintain the ethanol program. The decision responds to the narrow interests of the corn commodity sector and to misplaced green ideology of the Left; but it does not advance the prosperity of general American agriculture or the recovery of rural America.
Update. December 25, 2009. The ethanol subsidized demand for corn is also an environmental disaster. It has pushed farmers to plant corn in marginal areas requiring irrigation. This expansion depletes aquifers, pollutes the underground reservoirs with pesticides and other agricultural waste, pollutes underground and above ground rivers, and contributes to the eutrophication of coastal regions that receive the runoff waters. (Robert F. Service, "Another Bioifuels Drawback: The Demand for Irrigation," Science 326, 23 October 2009, p. 516 ff.)
Comments