Reader Responses

The ethanol mandate should be cut or eliminated. It doesn’t make sense to burn food that is needed as food, as fuel. In 2007 there were some 75,000 people in the streets of Mexico City protesting the tripling of the price of tortillas from 63 cents in January, 2006, to $1.81 US. The Washington Post reported, “Mexican families with one wage earner have been forced in recent months to spend as much as one third of their income on tortillas — or eating less.”

It’s not just the Mexican poor that are impacted by the ethanol mandate. The price of American foods dependent on corn is also being forced up. With the federal subsidy and mandate, more acreage is being moved from producing corn for food to producing corn for fuel. The subsidy is also moving acreage from other crops to corn.

Ethanol as fuel gives lower gas mileage. And it takes petroleum products to produce corn. Sugar cane produced ethanol can be imported much cheaper from Brazil, if people really want to burn it.

The EPA and liberals ignore evidence in their love for biofuels. Gov. Perry was right in his request.

Royce Ballew
Tyler