Editorial: It's time to end the excessive subsidies for corn ethanol

The Washington Post
Saturday, July 24, 2010

WHEN WASHINGTON starts handing out cash, it can be hard to stop. See, for example, the decades of subsidies the government has showered on the corn ethanol industry. The fuel was supposed to free America from its dependence on foreign oil and produce fewer carbon emissions in the process. It's doing some of the former and little of the latter. But corn ethanol certainly doesn't need the level of taxpayer support it's been getting. Lawmakers are considering whether to renew these expensive subsidies; they shouldn't.

The feds give companies that combine corn ethanol with gasoline a 45-cent tax subsidy for every gallon of corn ethanol added to gasoline. That's on top of a tariff on imported sugar cane ethanol from Brazil and federal mandates requiring that steadily increasing amounts of these biofuels be produced. The Congressional Budget Office this month estimated that, all told, the costs to taxpayers of replacing a gallon of gasoline with one of corn ethanol add up to $1.78. The tax incentives alone cost the Treasury $6 billion in 2009.

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