Corn-fed Politicians

The reason for the situation outlined in Steven Rattner's article, "The Great Corn Con" can be narrowed down to the same two (often related) influences that tend to guide most things in this country: politics and money.

Corn/ethanol production is a huge dollar industry which incorporates everyone from the ethanol refineries, to the gasoline blenders, chemical fertilizer companies, machinery producers, seed distributors, lobbyists, and countless others; but it all starts with the farmers. In his article, "The Ethanol Lobby: Profits vs. Food," Ed Wallace posits the question: "If you had two customers for the same product and one paid more than the other, which customer would you choose?" Corn farmers are essentially faced with this same dilemma, especially those practicing large-scale mono-culture. On one hand they could produce relatively labor intensive, yet nutritious, food for one price. Or they could produce stress free corn which will earn them a greater price as well as some major tax breaks to boot. (http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/may2009/bw20090526_169812.htm) Most farmers are going to choose the latter any day of the week. The cumulative effect of all the individual farmers making this very basic, personal economic decision is a multi-billion dollar industry which has firmly rooted itself in the U.S. economic and political system.

Unfortunately, with great wealth comes great political influence. The Ethanol industry is able to harness that wealth by hiring highly talented and influential lobbyists and paying for PR campaigns touting the "advantages" of ethanol. The resulting policies have granted about $22.5 billion in tax-payer subsidies to ethanol producers between 2005 and 2010. (http://www.ewg.org/files/EWG-corn-ethanol-energy-security.pdf) In fact, an attempt to end the 45 cent-per-gallon tax subsidy that Rattner discussed in his article was defeated in the on June 14 by a vote of 59-40 in the Senate. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/us/politics/15senate.html?scp=6&sq=ethanol&st=cse). This should all look fairly familiar. The corn/ethanol has essentially become the domestic equivalent to oil the oil industry. The only difference is oil produces more energy than it takes to create, unlike ethanol. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/opinion/25Rattner.html?scp=2&sq=ethanol&st=cse)