I didn't hear Mr. Free Trader mention lifting the ethanol tariff in his solutions to the rising cost of gas.
There is an informative article in USA Today, Brazil hopes to build on its ethanol success
Brazilian ethanol won't do as much as it could to help the U.S. reduce Middle Eastern oil imports because of domestic trade protection.
In 2005, the U.S. produced 3.9 billion gallons of fuel ethanol and imported 109 million gallons, almost all from Brazil. By expanding purchases of Brazilian ethanol, the USA could curb what President Bush has labeled its oil addiction. But the U.S. imposes a 54-cent-a-gallon tariff to discourage imports and protect domestic farmers. American ethanol is produced from corn, which costs more and produces less energy per unit of input than sugar cane.
There is another issue besides Exxon and their $8 billion in profit. Big Oil isn't the only giants with Republicans in their pockets. There is ADM trying to hold on to a Monopoly.
ADM's motto is "The Shape of What's to Come."
Even the
Cato Institute was all over ADM when President Clinton was taking their money but they managed to
improve a bad reputation
ADM is certainly the nation's most arrogant welfare recipient. And it is one of the few welfare recipients that spend millions of dollars each year advertising on Sunday morning television shows populated and watched by politicians. Chairman Dwayne Andreas's and ADM's success in farming Washington represents the rational result of contemporary government policies that turn elections into "an advanced auction of stolen goods," as H. L. Mencken quipped. Thanks to its multi-million-dollar hustling in Washington, a company that lives and dies on the generosity of the American taxpayer has managed to get itself revered as a great public servant. Although ADM is not the only corporation with its hand out in Washington, it is easily one of the most successful beggars on the block
There isn't much new information on Archer Daniels Midland and the politicians in their pocket but a WaPo piece from 1998, ADM's Largess Preserved Ethanol Break, Study Says has some information.
Agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM), the single largest beneficiary of a controversial federal ethanol tax subsidy, contributed more than $3 million in unregulated "soft money" to Republican and Democratic national party committees during the past 10 years, according to a study by Common Cause.
Congress recently extended the subsidy through 2007 as part of the new highway bill signed into law Tuesday, overriding efforts by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer (R-Tex.) and other critics of "corporate pork" to kill the tax break.
And there is this Seattle Times editorial from May 15, 2000
And not just corn-staters, because ethanol - as all of you who listen to the eco-porn on the Sunday morning chat shows well know - is the particular baby of the Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. ADM produces 40 percent of the ethanol in this country, and as you may also know, ADM makes big, big political contributions. The annual fight over the ethanol subsidy is always a doozy, and ADM always wins.
Sorry that I can't find any new information and I'm already late for work. Maybe someone else can take up this ethanol scam. At 54-cent-a-gallon it sounds more like an embargo that a tarrif.
