We all got a valentine from a few members of Congress!

Some good things have happened since my January 24 story about the horrible cost of ethanol, so I am following up with a specific appeal to all our readers.  According to one of the ethanol industry lobbying organizations, and it should know, two bills have been introduced into the US Congress that would curtail or eliminate the "mandate" that we buy their product.  One of these two is called, H.R. 3098, "the Renewable Fuel Standard Elimination Act", and if you can trust the name, every driver who does not own a corn farm or an ethanol plant, should be for it.  That is about 200 million of us, so there is no excuse for this legislation to fail, except for the cowardliness and greed of our Congressmen, when dealing with a wealthy lobby. 

Here is why I am using the nouns "racket" and "racketeer" to describe the ethanol business.  We are compelled to buy a product that we would reject if we could, and we pay more for it than we would pay for what we do want, gasoline.  Furthermore, ethanol has no eleemosynary or humanitarian benefits to mankind that might outweigh its cost to us.  Those who sell it to us combine with each other, using a part of their ill-gotten gain, to pay our Congress to dictate that we buy "ethanol."  This force is called corn ethanol "Mandates." 
Some 80 years ago our citizens were beset with a similar "racket" resulting from a "mandate" called Prohibition, that was also an over-flavored "ethanol" called corn liquor, chemically identical to what we burn in our cars.  But, however criminal the racketeers of the "Roaring 20s," no citizen was forced to buy and drink their ethanol; we are forced to buy and burn it in our cars.

Ethanol racketeers know they would not survive if the corn ethanol "mandates" are ended.  Every one of them will be out of a job, every ethanol plant will be closed, and 5 or 10 million farmers will, we hope, go back to raising food instead of worth-less fuel.  Grain will once again become more abundant and affordable for food.  Five billion bushels of corn that are being converted into 13 billion gallons of corn alcohol, will once again be available for food.  Tens of millions around the world who now face starvation may live.
Those who run the ethanol racket are not dumb or innocent, they are smart businessmen who know how to remain on very good terms with your Congressman. The ethanol racketeers are not without a plan.  It is like that of  the rabbit who outsmarted the bear in an old folk story, Br Rabbit begged of the bear, "Pleased don\’t throw me in the briar patch."  The Briar Patch for the ethanol gang is an emergency compromise called HR 3097, which looks like it will sting, but will probably never curb the racketeers.  We must not settle for it!

We to are wasting our time unless we know what we want before we pick up the phone or pen to paper.  In my previous letter I estimated mandates have cost  the average small family something like $1000.00 per year for the last six years, mostly in higher food costs.  That should be incentive enough.  The key words we need to know are END ALL ETHANOL MANDATES.  Not some mandates part of the time, but all mandates all the time.  End means end!   Congress is actually thinking about doing this because they know ethanol is a racket.  But they are under great pressure from the corn-ethanol lobby to compromise, and compromise legislation is already introduced.  Tell your Congressman what "end" means.

Congress knows.  Remember, in December the cowardly Congress dodged a debate on corn ethanol and allowed subsidies of $.45 per gallon paid to the Corn Ethanol Racketeers to expire, as well as, a protectionist import tariff of $.55 per gallon, saving consumers six billion dollars each year.  They did the right thing by running away because they did not want to admit it was they who put this burden on us in the first place.

Congress can end the Racket, and so can the President.  Congress has granted him outrageous latitude through his appointed Director of the Environmental Protection Agency and Secretary of Agriculture.  President Obama can, if he will, hamstring the Mandates through his Director of the EPA, and Secretary of Agriculture.  He probably will not do this, but he needs to know he will not get your vote unless he stands up to the ethanol racketeers.  If the President takes action it will be easier to force Congress to finish the ending.

Those who have fought the corn ethanol racket through education have moved a mountain one inch by embarrassing the cowardly Congress into  allowing subsidies to expire.   Let us now move the mountain a mile!  Kill all Ethanol Mandates and let ethanol compete, if it can, or fade away, if it can not.
www.whtt.org


Victory! Congress Allows Ethanol Subsidies to Expire 
http://www.care2.com/causes/victory-congress-allows-ethanol-subsidies-to-expire.html#ixzz1iXAKytP6
Corn-to-Ethanol: US Agribusiness Magic Path To A World Food Monopoly 
https://whtt.org/newwhtt/main.php?nid=1774
World Food Situation
http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/en/
EPA Renewable Fuel Standards 
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/index.htm
A Chemical Engineer Evaluates Ethanol as a Fuel
PRN Newswire, Kills 200,000 per year: 
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/biofuels-policy-may-kill-200000-per-year-in-the-third-world-118770124.html