World Begs US to Stop Burning Shrinking Food Supply - Ethanol

It has been proven that use of corn to produce ethanol does nothing to alleviate the CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.  But it has also been proven that food prices have skyrocketed since this ill conceived environmentalist legislation.  It is time for the repeal of this legislation and get back to feeding the world. 

Excerpt:This mandated glass of stomach-churning regulation remains a primary component of United States energy and environmental policy, elevating food prices worldwide and further destabilizing countries hovering at the edge of political unrest.

Saving Obama the trouble of appointing yet another commission to study the issue, the deleterious effects of biofuel subsidies and mandates have already been well documented.

Both the public and private sector have catalogued in-depth the rise in food prices caused by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act that reallocated corn harvests from hungry stomachs to internal combustion engines. The Congressional Budget Office showed that the mandates accounted for ten to fifteen percent of the price rise from 2007-2008, and the National Chicken Council commissioned a study showing a seventy-nine percent acceleration in the Consumer Price Index for meat, poultry, fish, and eggs since the bill went into law. A full forty percent of the current corn crop is dedicated to fuel instead of food.

On top of these existing price rises, the USDA’s latest production forecast predicts that corn and soybean production will be down 12% from last year due to the ongoing and severe drought ravaging corn crops in the heartland. While the United States recovers from a limp economy and continues to pay out food stamps to 46.4 million citizens, current ethanol policy increases the price of these handouts even as our national debt approaches a staggering $16 trillion. The USDA forecasts that by the end of 2012, domestic grocery prices will have risen another 2.5 to 3.5 percent.

As the leading food exporter in the world, U.S. commodity shortfalls affect food prices across the globe. The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization’s overall food price index climbed six percentage points in July alone. A Tuft University report shows that U.S. ethanol policy caused our Mexican neighbors to incur an additional $1.5 billion to $3.2 billion in import costs from 2006-2011. This while millions of its citizens illegally fled to the United States to escape poverty. Mexico’s most recent food riot was in 2008, and it may only be a matter of time before the next one.

Read full report here.