By: The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
While Big Oil and multinational food corporations continue to spend millions shamelessly exploiting this year’s drought in key agricultural states by spreading misinformation about American-made corn ethanol and the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the fact remains the RFS is achieving what it was designed to do.
Some of these attacks come on the heels of a Nov. 16 decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declining waiver requests to suspend the RFS for 2012 and 2013. The RFS is a requirement that renewable fuels be blended into petroleum transportation fuels such as gasoline.
Blending corn ethanol into gasoline reduces our reliance on foreign oil, helping to meet our nation’s goal of energy independence. In 2011, thanks in part to corn ethanol, the U.S. imported 485 million fewer barrels of oil — greater than all the oil we import from Saudi Arabia.
The drought certainly has had devastating effects on many families, but waiving the RFS will not change that. We are very sympathetic to those in the livestock industry who are concerned about the corn price and supply, as many corn farmers raise livestock as well. However, even the EPA’s analysis of more than 500 scenarios confirmed that only a 1 percent reduction in corn prices would have occurred had the RFS waiver been approved.
The corn price plays only a minor role in the cost of food, as it makes up only 3 cents of every dollar spent on food at the grocery store. One fact conveniently left out of the rhetoric about food prices is that world crude-oil prices have more than doubled since 2005, a much more significant component of food cost than corn. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a 50 percent increase in the farm price of corn means just a 0.5 percent to 1 percent increase in food prices at the grocery store. Even a questionable anti-ethanol study commissioned by the National Council of Chain Restaurants notes that any potential price increase in corn related to the RFS would be nowhere near 50 percent.
Recognizing the small impact the price of corn has on the cost of food, this study designed to disparage ethanol could suggest that any food-price increases as a result of corn would be nearly imperceptible to the average consumer.
Corn growers throughout the country have met all needs, and despite the recent drought, are expected to harvest the eighth-largest corn crop in recorded history this year. Only the starch in the corn kernel is used for corn ethanol, while the protein and nutrients return to help feed our animals.
Even with all the uncertainty, projections are there will be enough excess corn this year to fill the Empire State Building more than 20 times.
Finally, the ethanol industry supports more than 400,000 American jobs and is the most readily available and economical American-made renewable fuel on the market. Allowing access to the fuel market for ethanol through the mandate of the RFS is the only way to break the petroleum monopoly that has kept ethanol and any other fuel from entering our fuel supply for decades.
It is right for the U.S. to produce its own fuel to help loosen the stranglehold foreign counties have on our energy needs throughout the world.
