Stupidity, Thy Name is Congress

Everday on (insert major media outlet here) we are treated to a cacophony of voices that consistently work to blame Big Oil and the Bushes (not to mention Dick Cheney and Halliburton) for the high price of gasoline.

But when Congress has the chance to do really do something about it, what do they do?  Hide under their desks like a set of baby boomers practicing duck and cover drills in school.

Today, Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) proposed an amendment that would lift the 50-cent per gallon tarriff on imported ethanol.  Why is this important?

Well, since we now have a mandated level of 10% per volume of ethanol, a number of things have happened.

• The cost of corn has tripled.
• The cost of corn ethanol has doubled.
• The cost of feed has doubled.
• The cost of any meet fed with corn-based feed has more than doubled.
• The cost of tortillas in Mexico has quadrupled.
• The cost of anything that uses high fructose corn syrup (which is just about anything in the store these days) has doubled.

Why? Because in the United States, we make (and use) only corn-based ethanol, mainly as a way to create artificial markets for corn growers, and paycheck protection for Senators and Representatives from corn-growing states.

However, there are all sorts of other ways to make ethanol -- it is, after alll, nothing more than distilled spirits.  Hell, you can make ethanol in a backwoods still with a 50lb bag of sugar, some stainless steel pots, and tubing.

Among countries that are notoriously prodigious at making ethanol is Brazil, where something like 70% of the fuel used is ethanol.  Since Brazil has no petroleum industry to speak off, they moved to alternative fuels like cellulosic ethanol years ago (at TREMENDOUS cost to their economy by the way). 

The fifty cent tarriff is really an unrecognized tax on gasoline consumers.  Doing away with the tarriff  would dramatically lower the cost of  ethanol, and would  trickle down to the price of gasoline.

An even better side benefit is that it would solidify our relationship with Brazil, which would help counter Venezuela's rising socialist influence in South America.

So what did the Senate do?  They punted, and voted it down, cowering under their desks.

Here's the roll-call vote of how our feckless Senators voted.