Bob Goodlatte’s ethanol subsidies and Renewable Fuel Standard mandates are driving us to the edge of an economic cliff: 40% of US corn is now burned up for fuel, and food prices have doubled!
Corn ethanol is expensive, wasteful, and inefficient. It takes nearly as much “dirty” petroleum to create corn ethanol as the so-called “clean” energy produced by burning it. Americans gain no measureable environmental benefit in corn ethanol!
But here is what does happen. Ethanol destroys food for livestock and people, and government-created artificial demand for corn shifts production from other food crops. The result: Higher costs in the grocery store – traced directly back to Bob Goodlatte’s bad ideas.
Goodlatte helped start these destructive and expensive ethanol mandates and a pro-ethanol policy as former House Agriculture Committee Chairman. He supports them to this day. Why does Bob Goodlatte vote for policies that ultimately harm the working people and farmers of the Sixth District?
Bob voted for the 2005 Energy Bill corn subsidies and the Renewable Fuel Standard – forcing ethanol inclusion in all of our gasoline. Today he’s proposing a “flexible” RFS mandate, a tax-funded boondoggle for Midwest corn and ethanol lobbies and a continued disaster for the people of the Sixth District and the rest of the country.
Ethanol mandates drive up the cost of our food and transportation. When the price of food doubles, the cost of the Food Stamp program doubles! The cost to feed the U.S. military doubles! The cost of school lunch and breakfast rises! More government borrowing is requested – and Bob, as he has done 13 times in a row, will continue support more federal borrowing from China.
Bob Goodlatte thinks the government and corn ethanol lobbies know best what we should buy, consume, eat, buy and how we should be transported. Bob Goodlatte and Barack Obama agree 100% on ethanol. Bob and Barack both demand government managed energy markets, and government chosen winners and losers.
Karen Kwiatkowski is a candidate for the Sixth District Republican congressional nomination.
Share
AFP
