Several agricultural organizations, including the National Pork Producers Council and the American Meat Institute, have expressed what they call serious concerns over a new proposal from the ethanol industry that would extend the expiring ethanol blenders credit and import tariff on foreign ethanol, create new corn ethanol subsidies and change the definition of "advanced biofuels" to include corn ethanol in the Renewable Fuels Standard. The organizations believe that if the definition of "advanced biofuels" is changed to include corn ethanol, more than 50% of the U.S. corn crop will go into ethanol production.
The letter to both House and Senate leadership states that although we support the need to advance renewable and alternative sources of energy, we strongly believe it is time that the mature corn-based ethanol industry operates on a level playing field with other commodities whose largest input cost is corn. The letter continues that favoring one segment of agriculture at the expense of another does not benefit agriculture as a whole or the consumers that ultimately purchase our products.
The letter continues that this new proposal does nothing to develop the next generation of renewable fuels derived from non-feed and food sources. The federal government should move toward biofuels policies that do not force food and energy producers to compete with each other for key inputs and do not pick winners and losers in the alternative energy sector.
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