"Ethanol is here to stay," newly confirmed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced this weekend. "And we're going to work for new technologies to be more efficient."
Perdue made the announcement flanked by two Republican Iowa lawmakers, wearing a pin that could take the award for best or most obscure special-interest lobbying swag. It read, "Don't mess with the RFS," referring to the federal requirement that the nation's gasoline supply be diluted with massive amounts of ethanol — 19.3 billion gallons of the stuff annually.
In an actual market, in which producers and consumers chose for themselves, demand for ethanol would be a tiny fraction of that vast amount, which is why the ethanol industry is so eager to keep the boondoggle in place. It's a license to print money at the expense of taxpayers, drivers and citizens.
Perdue was always an ethanol fan. In 2007, as governor of Georgia, he dumped $6 million into a company that claimed it could economically produce the fuel from wood chips. The company quickly consumed the taxpayers' funds and went out of business in 2011.
Despite his support for the ethanol lobby on the campaign trail, Trump had shown at least a few signs that he might be willing to derail the ethanol gravy train. He chose an EPA administrator who had previously sued the EPA over the ethanol mandate. And, in fact, ethanol is one of the few issues where Scott Pruitt is probably in complete agreement with the EPA staffers whom he now oversees.
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01.17.2025