WASHINGTON — Is corn- based ethanol fuel the wave of the future, creating domestic jobs and vital to the nation’s energy supply? Or is it a taxpayer boondoggle responsible for higher food prices? For some in Washington, the answers to those questions have changed.
For years, ethanol fuel derived from corn was almost politically untouchable, thanks to powerful advocates on Capitol Hill. The ethanol industry has consequently exploded over the past decade, thanks to government subsidies and incentives.
But skepticism about ethanol is rising, prompted by fluctuating food prices and an organized campaign by anti-ethanol advocates to discredit the industry.
“The old saying is that if you aren’t at the table, you’re on the menu,” says Tom Buis, lobbyist and chief executive of Growth Energy, an ethanol-industry group formed in 2008 as some ethanol companies grew worried that their political clout was waning. The organization’s largest member is Poet LLC, one of the country’s top two ethanol producers.
At stake are billions of dollars in tax credits for ethanol companies that expire at the end of the year and a pending action at the Environmental Protection Agency that could raise the amount of ethanol in every driver’s fuel tank.
Buis says the industry now has to work harder to convince an increasingly skeptical public and Congress that ethanol continues to deserve government money. A series of TV ads launched this week are part of the group’s efforts.
There’s evidence that Congress is weary of giving money to an industry that critics say should be able to stand on its own after getting its start in the early 1980s with powerful congressional advocates such as Sens. Bob Dole of Kansas and Tom Daschle of South Dakota.
“It is our view that after 30 years we should declare success,” says Scott Faber, a lobbyist for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, whose member companies say they have seen their prices rise because of the high use of corn for ethanol.
After Growth Energy filed its petition last year to increase the amount of ethanol in gasoline from 10 to 15 percent, the EPA said in December it needed more tests to determine if car engines could handle it.
