Energy Campaign

Ethanol

Since 1978, the United States government has granted a multitude of tax incentives and subsidies to promote the growth of a domestic ethanol industry. The industry and its supporters, including suppliers of ethanol's primary input, corn, maintain that ethanol is an effective and environmentally-friendly substitute for gasoline.

However, the huge ethanol subsidies given out year after year have benefited few besides corn growers and ethanol producers, who are often just different units of the same large company. Despite the lobbyists' claims, ethanol has neither reduced dependence on foreign oil nor significantly helped to reduce pollution. Taxpayers' repeated payments in the form of subsidies to corn growers, ethanol producers, and opportunity cost serve no other purpose than to artifically prop up the corn and ethanol industry.

Featured Resources:

• Ethanol Subsidies: Too Much for Too Little (pdf)
• The Race for Ethanol Subsidies (White Paper)
• Wastebasket Vol. XII No. 3: Ethanol-a-holics
• TCS Letter Opposing Senate Energy Bill Ethanol Amendment

Resources:

• July 1, 2005 -- Wastebasket Vol. X No. 22: "Drunk on Ethanol"
• June 5, 2003 -- Wastebasket Vol. VIII No. 23: "Creamed by the Corn Belt"
• February 21, 2003 -- Wastebasket Vol. VIII No. 8: "8 Ways to Trim the Fat"
• June 28, 2002 -- Bailout Watch: Ethanol Continues to Reap Subsidy Windfall
• May 2, 2002 -- Wastebasket Vol. VII No. 18: "The Energy Bill Scam"
  
• April 25, 2002 -- TCS Action Letter to the Hill: "Oppose Billions in Energy Subsidies - Vote "NO" on Final Passage of Energy Bill"
• April 23, 2002 -- Taxpayer Group Blasts Senate on Ethanol Decision
• June 12, 2001 -- Taxpayer Group Blasts Administration on Ethanol Decision - Farm Lobby and Corporate Agribusiness to Benefit at Expense of Taxpayers, California Drivers
• March 29, 2000 -- Wastebasket Vol. V No. 11: "Ethanol: America's Political Cash Cow"