The Swine Line

I love it when politicians stick their noses in things and make policy on stuff they know nothing about.

For years, Congress has been pushing corn ethanol and taxpayers have paid big subsidies for this alternative form of energy.

Well, now we are starting to see the consequences of politicians interfering with something they know little about.

More and more scientific studies are being released that show many biofuels, particularly corn ethanol, are bad for the environment (and a lousy fuel source too.) 

Here is an article from Scientific American about two studies published in the journal Science that shows biofuels are bad for the environment and are causing hunger across the globe.

For those that worry at night about CO2 and global warming, guess what…ethanol can be worse than gasoline.  Here is a short paragraph from the article…

By turning crops such as corn, sugarcane and palm oil into biofuels—whether ethanol, biodiesel, or something else—proponents hope to reap the benefits of the carbon soaked up as the plants grow to offset the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted when the resulting fuel is burned. But whether biofuels emit more or less CO2 than gasoline depends on what the land they were grown on was previously used for, both studies show.

Great.  So let me get this straight…in order to protect 2,000 acres of frozen tundra in the Coastal Plain, part of the 19.6 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR), we will put up with millions of acres of rainforest being plowed under in order to create more farm land to plant crops for biofuel.

Tomorrow, House leadership will take up yet another energy tax bill…H.R. 5351.  Pelosi and company want to raise taxes on oil and gas companies (which will be passed onto you) and use those funds to subsidize more …you guessed it…corn ethanol!