Congress Should Permanently Waive the Ethanol Mandate.

Congress Should Permanently Waive the Ethanol Mandate.(Heritage).By Nicolas Loris.Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rejected a proposal from a number of governors and federal legislators to partially waive the Renewable Fuels Standard, which mandates the production of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022.
This year, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires refiners to blend nearly 13 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol into gasoline.
With this past summer’s drought limiting corn supply and driving up prices, farmers and ranchers who feed corn to their livestock argue that the ethanol mandate is further distorting prices and pushing limited corn resources from food to fuel.
Whether we use corn for food or fuel should be for the market to determine. Whether the impact of the mandate has large or small impacts on prices is irrelevant, because the mandate is simply bad policy. Congress should make up for the EPA’s refusal to waive the mandate by repealing the Renewable Fuels Standard.
Originally championed as a way to reduce dependence on foreign oil and produce environmentally friendly fuels, the mandate has attracted a wide collection of opposition. Proponents of a free-market energy policy ask this simple question: If biofuels are competitive, why do they need a mandate that guarantees a share in the market?Read the full story here.