EDITORIAL: Biofuel mandate worsens drought’s effect

The Washington Times
Monday, July 23, 2012


Kernel conundrum pits fuel against food

Washington’s ethanol mandate is hitting Americans in the breadbasket. The worst drought in a half-century is withering cornfields across the heartland while Uncle Sam stubbornly insists American corn be turned into billions of gallons of this unnecessary fuel additive. The result is higher food prices in an already struggling economy. Unless the government can make it rain, Congress should uproot the ethanol mandate.

Hot and dry conditions across the Midwest have placed 70 percent of the corn belt in extreme drought and 61 percent of the nation in at least moderate drought, according to the Drought Monitor, a report compiled by federal climatologists. Only about 31 percent of the nation’s corn crop is in good or excellent condition, and 38 percent of it is in poor or very poor condition. As a result, the U.S. Department of Agriculture last week lowered its forecast of the nation’s corn yield by 12 percent, pushing up the wholesale price of corn to a record $8.16 per bushel.

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