A rare breed, this fellow, Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn.
This statesman (a politician with class who puts the national interest ahead of local interests) believes he’ll have the required Senate votes to end the 45-cent blender tax credit for ethanol, and the 54-cent tariff on imported ethanol. In case you’re unclear about the morality of this matter, a new study suggests that the world’s poor would benefit even more than U.S. taxpayers if governments stopped subsidizing the transformation of food into fuel.
Ten international organizations, including the World Bank, together with five different agencies of the U.N., just came out with a study documenting, for those who care, the immorality of biofuel subsidies.
The new study identifies biofuel subsidies as among the leading causes of agricultural price spikes. According to the report, “between 2000 and 2009, global output of bio-ethanol quadrupled and production of biodiesel increased tenfold,” a spike which “has been largely driven by government support policies.” The report cites forecasts suggesting that the price of coarse grains could increase as much as 13%, oilseeds by 7% and vegetable oil 35% on average each year between 2013 and 2017.
Did you catch that? The report cites forecasts. Advance knowledge. In the form of: this is the predictable result of that. We could have known, and we now can know. Knowledge, they say, is power. But knowledge also increases culpability, which means moral responsibility.
Currently, biofuel production uses as its raw material 20% of the world’s sugar cane, 9% of oilseeds and coarse grains, and 4% of sugar beets—and more than 40% of U.S. corn production.
The most recent Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (vol. 16, no. 1, Spring 2011) contains an article corroborating the immorality of biofuel subsidies: “Could Biofuel Policies Increase Death and Disease in Developing Countries?” by Indur M. Goklany, Ph.D. (you can read it here). His conclusion is sobering:
This analysis concludes that the production of biofuels may have led to at least 192,000 additional deaths and 6.7 million additional lost DALYs [disability-adjusted life years] in 2010. These estimates are conservative. First, they exclude consideration of a number of health risks that are, in fact, directly related to poverty (e.g., indoor smoke from burning coal, wood, and dung indoors; and iron deficiency). Second, the analysis only considered the poverty effects of biofuel production over and above the 2004 level; therefore, it does not provide a full estimate of the effect of all biofuel production. Despite the underestimations, these estimates exceed the WHO’s estimates of the toll of death and disease for global warming. Thus, policies to stimulate biofuel production, in part to reduce the alleged impacts of global warming on public health, particularly in developing countries, may actually have increased death and disease globally.
Do you recall those summertime “farm aid” concerts where country singers and movie stars rallied rural America in protest of the current farm “crisis”? Tractors putt-putted all the way to Washington, D.C., chants were raised along with the red bandanas, hands were held, and rallies were staged.
Wonder how much outrage they’ll be able to muster this summer in the agribusiness industry, er, farming community.
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What follows are the very words of Abraham Kuyper:
