Food vs. fuel vs. common sense

HighPlains/Midwest Ag Journal: Editorial
By Seymour Klierly

In the waning days of the farm bill brouhaha between the sub-par leadership of the Senate and the House and the administration, another scuffle has broken out between ag interests. Congressmen and governors, corn growers and grocery store owners stood toe to toe over the price of food this week. Competing letters were sent to the Environmental Protection Agency regarding that agency's implementation of the Renewable Fuels Standard or "ethanol mandate" as it's most commonly referred.

In 2005, Congress passed an energy bill that included the first national ethanol mandate, set at 12.5 billion gallons by 2012. A short two years later, reports surfaced that the 12.5 billion gallon mandate would be surpassed by 2009. Congress took action again, this time raising the mandate to 36 billion gallons by 2022. EPA is just now beginning to implement regulations to meet this new mandate and that's why the fight has begun.

Some claim the heart of the issue is rising food prices, and that the rapid increase in the federal ethanol mandate is largely to blame for that increase. Texas Governor Rick Perry recently sent a letter to EPA requesting they waive the higher mandate level. Not long afterward, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and 23 of her colleagues sent a similar letter to EPA citing growing environmental concerns surrounding corn ethanol production and competition between food and fuel.

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