The renewable fuel has cost drivers an extra $83 billion to fill their tanks since 2007, and it does little or no good for the climate.
In the past two presidential-primary seasons, candidates crisscrossing Iowa before the caucuses would pay obeisance to corn ethanol and its compulsory use in gasoline.
Yet in the current campaign, Sen. Ted Cruz reliably sits atop the Iowa polls even though he scoffs at the Renewable Fuel Standard passed by Congress in 2005 and expanded in 2007.
Maybe even Iowans are having second thoughts about a law that has been a boon to corn growers but hardly anyone else.
Before long, it may be politically safe to take a wise step and eliminate the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)....Today, ethanol’s downsides have become clear.
First, it increases the cost of driving. Current ethanol blends provide fewer miles per gallon, so drivers pay more to travel the same distance...
Second, ethanol adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than it eliminates by replacing fossil fuels.
The Environmental Working Group says that “corn ethanol is an environmental disaster.”
The group explains: “The mandate to blend ethanol into gasoline has driven farmers to plow up land to plant corn—40 percent of the corn now grown in the U.S. is used to make ethanol.
When farmers plow up grasslands and wetlands to grow corn, they release the carbon stored in the soil, contributing to climate-warming carbon emissions.”
And then there is the carbon emitted in harvesting, transporting and processing the corn into ethanol.
...Finally, the U.S. no longer needs renewable fuels to reduce its dependence on energy from foreign sources.
Thanks to expansion in the oil and gas industry, the U.S. has outdistanced Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s top oil and natural-gas producer.
The U.S. could become energy independent in five years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, but only if crude oil prices are high enough to keep American producers operating..."
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