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Working From Home: Energy Production Becomes a Domestic
Business
Source:
The Hand That Feeds U.S.
Posted on February 15, 2011
 When
you hear the word homegrown, what comes to mind?
Probably fresh vegetables from your own garden, or the
Christmas tree that you got from the farm just down the
road.
No matter what it's
referring to, homegrown is associated with a certain
expectation. And when it comes to fuel, ethanol is the
gold standard.
According to Growth
Energy—a proactive organization that represents the
production and utilization of ethanol—the industry
created and supported 400,000 new jobs across the
country in 2009 alone, that cannot be exported or
outsourced.
And from a national
security perspective, "Homegrown means that we're less
dependent upon people like Dictator Chavez and the oil
sheiks," Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) explained to his
colleagues in the Senate chamber last month.
This statement was
made in defense of the current ethanol policies that
provide domestic fuel producers a 45-cent tax credit per
gallon. Recently, these tax credits have come under fire
as opposing members of the Senate have called for the
tax credits to expire.
Not a rookie at
having to defend ethanol—a policy which is consistently
targeted by other (bigger) fuel industries-Senator
Grassley went on to point out that the reason the tax
incentives were implemented to begin with, was to
protect a domestic fuel supply and reclaim energy
independence from foreign governments.
These are the same
reasons that certain incentives were recently extended
for oil and gas, Senator Grassley pointed out in his
appeal to fellow members of the Senate.
"Opponents of
the Sanders amendment [to the American Jobs and Closing
Tax Loopholes Act H.R. 4213] argued that repealing the
oil and gas subsidies would reduce domestic energy
production and drive up our dependence upon foreign oil.
Now, opponents to the Sanders amendment argued that it
would cost U.S. jobs and increase prices at the pump for
consumers… I agreed with the arguments of the opponents.
All of my Republican colleagues and more than one-third
of the Democrats did as well. Thus, Senator Sanders'
amendment was defeated. Well, guess what? I know that
removing incentives for oil and gas will have the same
impact as removing incentives for ethanol. We'll get
less domestically produced ethanol and be more dependent
upon those oil sheiks. But it will also cost U.S. jobs.
It will increase our dependence on foreign oil. It will
increase prices for American consumers. So whether it's
jobs or increased dependence or increasing the price of
gas, no American would like that to be the result."
Senator Grassley
makes a very important point. While the ethanol
industry, just 30 years young, is still in its infant
stages compared to the century-old oil industry, which
still enjoys $35 billion worth of subsidies annually in
addition to what amounts to a lock on 85 percent of the
market.
In response to a
letter sent by opponents suggesting that the ethanol tax
credits be left to expire, a bipartisan group of fifteen
senators sent a letter of their own to Senators Reid and
McConnell, urging that they allow extension of the
ethanol tax credit at the current level.
"Allowing the
provisions to expire or remain expired would threaten
jobs, harm the environment, weaken our renewable fuel
industries, and increase our dependence on foreign oil,"
wrote the group, an argument that was further
articulated on the floor by Senator Grassley.
"Our country is
spending over $730 million a day on imported petroleum
this year, money that often ended up in the hands of
unstable or unfriendly governments. This is not the time
to reduce the supply of a domestic source of fuel and
place at greater risk the thousands of well-paying jobs
that the renewable fuels industry has created."
Aside from being
cleaner than diesel fuel or gasoline, ethanol, when used
as a transportation fuel, lowers gas prices 20 to 35
cents per gallon. "Ethanol is the available, affordable
alternative to gasoline today that can move our nation
toward a cleaner and more secure energy future,"
commented Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis in a recent press
release.
"An extension of
the credit will give the industry certainty, and
Congress the opportunity, to move forward with reforms
that will remove the infrastructure barriers to the
fuels market..."
The ethanol
industry is not part of your typical urban empire but is
made up of farmers from all across the country.
Bushmills Ethanol for example, is a farmer-owned
Minnesota-based cooperative that began in 2005, consists
of 415 farmers who produce roughly 49 million gallons of
ethanol per year.
These corn and
ethanol producers have experienced first hand, from both
personal and business perspectives, the effects that
these tax credits have had on producers and rural
America in general and are not willing to give that up
without a fight.
After all, there
are 400,000 Americans employed by the ethanol industry.
An industry that is saving the average American
household between $150-$300 per year and contributed
$53.3 billion to the nation's GDP in 2009 alone.
Sounds to us like
that's a track record worth fighting for.
Note:
This
article was originally published in The Hand That Feed
U.S. January 2011, and is republished on
ExperienceClovis.com with permission. All rights
reserved.
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