Biofuels policy & legislation
Here in Colorado we are subsidizing a huge global disaster. No, I’m not talking this time about factory farming.
Eight years of Biofuels (ethanol) policy and legislation has cemented in place the first world wide food cabal, which threatens a humanitarian disaster, a famine more serious than those caused by any tsunami, earthquake or drought.
This crisis is not in the dim future, it is here.
Political leaders of both parties have appropriated billions of dollars to subsidize major agribusiness corporations to destroy food; the latest appropriation was $14 billion. They call the process ‘bio-fuel’ or ethanol production, but because the amount of fuel produced is less than the amount of fuel it takes to produce it, the only correct term for the process is systematic destruction of the food consumed in the process. Agribusiness giants include Archer Daniels Midland, whose income was $44 billion last year, are subsidi zed to burn up America’s surplus food (mostly corn), while they carry out their principle business, marketing the remaining food which is made more scarce, expensive, and profitable in the process. Congress has created over us the first nearly foolproof, open-ended, food monopoly.
If you look at the gas pump, you’ll see a little sign: ‘Contains 15% (or 10%) ethanol.’ So, if your tank holds 20 gallons and you fill it for a total cost of $50.00, three of the 20 gallons you pump into the tank are grain alcohol made from corn.
One study tells us the subsidy to those who make ethanol cost taxpayers $2.21 per gallon of fossil fuel replaced, or $6.63 for three gallons.
(The lowest estimate of direct subsidies we find is $.51 per gallon, or $1.53 for your three gallons of alcohol.) This subsidy is over and above the $7.50 you pay for the three gallons of alcohol you pumped into your tank, which will not take you as far as the fuel farmers burned to raise the corn that went into the alcohol! No wonder agribusiness wants to build more plants and distill more corn into alcohol!!!!
The three gallons of ethanol are distilled from about 70 pounds of corn that would otherwise have been converted into beef, chicken, eggs, milk, pork or catfish. Corn would and does sustain human life quite nicely as a main staple for those who cannot afford meat, eggs, or milk.
Your feedback is welcome.
Please write to me at 1wonderswhy-owner@yahoogroups.com
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