Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) Supports Using Food For Fuel While Children are Starving

Ethanol is a farmer welfare program with the government decreeing corn based Ethanol be converted into fuel which has resulted in dramatically rising prices and conversion of huge amounts of acreage to corn production from other crops. Simply another example of government favoring one group (farmers) at the expense of consumers who now pay a lot more for corn based foods at the store and gasoline at the station.

 

Earth’s Energy in an article titled Reducing Carbon: Unintended Consequences reports:

Over the past couple of years there has been much written about how the attempt by the US to substitute ethanol for gasoline was leading to higher food prices.  The ethanol is made from corn and as the demand for ethanol shot up (largely mandated by government requirements that gasoline had to have a minimum ethanol content and corresponding subsidies to the ethanol industry), this meant less corn was available for other uses in the food chain, including the feeding of livestock. Initially the ethanol content was to be 10% but in the past year the US government has raised this target to 15%. (See, for example, Ethanol Blamed for Record Food Prices in MIT Technology Review and The Case Against Biofuels: Probing Ethanol’s Hidden Costs at Environment 360)

Senator Claire McCaskill: Are you not aware our country was developed on cheap, not expensive energy?

Are you not aware of the development of tremendous amounts of oil and natural gas taking place in the United States today by fracking? Are you not aware the reason we don’t have dramatically more production is due to the government blocking development by placing lands off limits. The government is our biggest enemy in trying to reach energy independence along with communists posing as environmentalists!

Are you not aware we have almost 200,000 miles of petroleum pipelines in the U.S.A. but the Keystone Pipeline has been blocked by your party for over 5 years for strictly political reasons? They say it isn’t safe to transport by pipeline which is ridiculous as it is the safest form of transportation. Currently the oil is coming by rail and you see how safe it is by the accidents occurring?

Are you not aware ethanol is subsidized and raises the price of gasoline to consumers and businesses alike but benefiting farmers?

Being a member of Congress I can understand how every time you decide to mandate something for the free market you muck it up. Corn should be used for food not as a fuel additive that decreases performance and harms small engines.

Turn on the TV and soon an ad appears asking for $19 a month to help feed hungry children around the world followed by another ad saying one in four children in the United States goes to bed hungry at night. If true, how can you in good conscience support Ethanol unless you are more concerned about buying votes through corn subsidies to farmers than the health of children around the world?