DRUNK ON ETHANOL

When the 2002 farm bill expires at the end of September, commodity subsidies will have cost taxpayers upwards of $100 billion. Just five crops - corn, cotton, rice, wheat, and soybean - get 95% of taxpayer subsidies. And according to some number-crunching of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data by Environmental Working Group, recipients of government farming handouts include a former pro basketball player, millionaires, and a talk show host. If it weren’t for all the taxpayer cash involved, we might think they were casting a bad reality TV show – Farming with the Stars

After realizing that they couldn’t compete in the open marketplace with petroleum, the ethanol folks got a bright idea: by handing out heaps of campaign cash, they could cozy up to Congress and get lawmakers to solve all their problems. Their master plan has paid off. The federal government injects more subsidies into ethanol than Jose Canseco pumps steroids into his left arm. Between the ethanol mandate, the 51-cent per gallon tax incentive, and the huge host of handouts and tax breaks for producers, the ethanol industry is riding high. Ethanol producers don’t need to compete with gasoline to take in huge profits; they can still haul home truckloads of cash so long as Congress remains their sugar daddy. But while corporate agriculture is getting drunk off of ethanol subsidies, taxpayers are getting stuck with a nasty hangover.

Taxpayers for Common Sense

What a sweet deal for the ethanol industry. Not only do they get massive subsidies--meaning OUR TAX dollars--to ply their trade, they also get a "nod and a wink" from the federal government when it comes to polluting both the water we drink and the air we breathe.

Billions upon billions of OUR tax dollars are laid at the feet of the ethanol industry, waiting to be scooped up by anyone wanting to start an Ethanol Factory... anywhere. No thought is given to the massive amount of air and wastewater pollutants that will be emitted by one of these "Toxic Terrors." The only thought is on how much money can be made off the strained back of the over burdened tax payers.

And when the pollution gets out of control, like it did at LOVE CANAL , the corporation that became fat and sassy pocketing massive amounts of taxpayer funded subsidies will just walk away from their generated Hazardous Waste Site and let the feds declare it a BROWNFIELD. Which will be cleaned up by monies supplied by, yup, you guessed right. The same poor souls that had their tax money extracted from them to pay for this Ethanol Factory will now be forced to pay for the cleanup of the waste that was dumped into their backyards. As comedian Jackie Gleason would say, "How Sweet It Is."