Serious Subsidy Talk

With all of the recent press and proposed legislation about the need to eliminate VEETC, the ethanol blender’s credit, people should first compare the amount invested into biofuels compared to what our country is spending on oil subsidies. Oil companies receive more than 10 times that of ethanol, our countries only available alternative to gasoline.

VEETC totaled $5.4 billion in 2010 compared to oil’s $133 plus billion.

In your opinion, what should our country be investing in? Dirty oil, whose prices can and have put our country into a recession. Or clean, renewable ethanol and other advanced biofuels that are moving our country towards energy independence, bettering our environment and saving drivers money at the pump. Without domestic ethanol production, projections show that gas would be around $.50/gallon higher today.

Without VEETC, studies suggest that thousands of American jobs would be lost, production would decline increasing our dependence on foreign oil and more than $3.4 billion would be eliminated in state, local and federal tax revenues.

For a complete breakdown of tax credits for both oil and ethanol, DTN did an excellent job of laying out both.