Way to go, James!
Way to go, James!
Good News For Corn, Bad News For You
The corn ethanol lobby gets a big break in Obama's 2015 budget proposal.
The Obama administration is reintroducing expensive subsidies for corn ethanol blender pumps in its 2015 budget.
By Ryan Alexander March 12, 2014 | 8:00 a.m. EDT + More
This is a good news/bad news story.
The good news was found in an unexpected place. We at Taxpayers for Common Sense did not have a lot of good things to say about the recently enacted 2014 Farm Bill, but there were a few glimmers of hope hidden among the billions of dollars of wasteful subsidies. For one, taxpayers would no longer be forced to subsidize ethanol blender pumps through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America Program. Corn ethanol, a fuel that is blended with most gasoline at a level of 10 percent (known as E10), was the main beneficiary of these subsidies since it is the most widely produced biofuel in this country.
[See a collection of political cartoons on the economy.]
The corn ethanol industry has a long history of receiving federal taxpayer subsidies. One of the biggest subsidies – the $6 billion-per-year Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit – was finally allowed to expire in 2011 after a Senate amendment to eliminate it offered by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., passed by a 73-27 margin. (The underlying bill ultimately failed to pass, but the amendment signaled that the days of the ethanol industry’s rule on Capitol Hill were over). So, the corn ethanol lobby pivoted to maximize taxpayer subsidies and turned to USDA to secure ethanol blender pump subsidies through the rural energy program which was originally designed to promote rural solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal projects. Congress even specifically barred corn ethanol from receiving taxpayer subsidies through it and other energy title programs in the 2008 Farm Bill. But in 2011 USDA began to allow blender pump subsidies to qualify for these payments since efforts to secure more subsidies through Congress were unsuccessful.
So it was great news that the (otherwise terrible) 2014 farm bill (officially the Agricultural Act of 2014) prevents the mature corn ethanol industry from receiving subsidies to purchase pumps dispensing higher blends of corn ethanol.
Now for the bad news. Less than a month after signing the farm bill into law, the president proposed new subsidies for ethanol blender pumps in his FY 2015 budget proposal. The overall budget was released last Tuesday, with detailed back up documents following in the last few days. Buried on page 158 of the “Analytical Perspectives” document, released Monday, is up to $200 million in new advanced energy manufacturing tax credits for the “construction of infrastructure that contributes to networks of refueling stations that serve alternative fuels,” or in other words, more subsidies for corn ethanol blender pumps and other alternative fuel infrastructure projects. Such is the power of the corn ethanol lobby. [more]
Obama's 2015 Budget Backs Costly Corn Ethanol Subsidies - US News
This is the way we should spend for ETHANOL
Investors around the world are betting big on whiskey, which can skyrocket in value and toss back whopping returns.
Spot on from a month ago.... even I don't believe that spot price tells the exact story... but, using the argument that has been made on this very thread, ethanol spot for January is approximately 10 cents more expensive than rbob gasoline. Can I (and the american consumer) get some relief from this mandate, please??!!!!???
Which one of you nuts has got any guts? -- Randle P. McMurphy
... stupidity will always find a way. -- Nnuut
I would just make a quick note-
While the gasoline market hasn't been much affected by the recent comments about trade wars, the price of CORN has been significantly impacted.
Here is a chart of what has happened to CORN prices over the last few weeks- they've tumbled.
2-a_zps2i0qyonf.png
Ouch.
Good news for flex-fuel drivers.
Bad news for farmers counting on Corn income.
SPOT PRICES THIS MORNING:
RBOB GASOLINE is trading at $2.04 a gallon on the Chicago exchange.
ETHANOL is currently trading at $1.41 a gallon, AND the RIN price (Renewable credit) is now at $0.18 cents a gallon, meaning a producer can sell his Ethanol product at roughly $1.23 a gallon.
The value of RIN's has collapsed in half over the last few months as the EPA is now chaing ethanol policy and granting lots of waivers to oil companies.
That, combined with the possiblity that China will target CORN and Ethanol DDG byproducts for trade tariffs, is hitting farmers especially hard right now.
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