Fight over ethanol brewing in D.C.

McPhersonSentinel.com
By Sean Wardwell, staff writer
The McPherson Sentinel
Posted Jun 24, 2011 @ 11:11 AM

McPherson, Kan. — The future of $6 billion in federal ethanol subsidies are up in the air after the U.S. Senate voted to eliminate them.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) worked together to pass an amendment through the Senate on June 16 to the Economic Development Revitalization Act of 2011 that eliminated the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC), which is also known as the “blender’s credit.”

Created in 2004 as part of the American Jobs Creation Act, the credit provides a .45 cents per-gallon credit on pure ethanol and a .54 cents per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. Its intent was to encourage the marketing of ethanol/gasoline blends.

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