Image by sroemerm via FlickrFinally, some great news. We're going to stop subsidizing the insane process of turning 40% of America's corn crop into 3% of our motor fuel supply (while making the climate much worse off).Not that we're going to stop doing the insanity, but at least we won't be both hanging ourselves AND paying a juicy subsidy to those selling us the rope.
Comment from Friends of the Earth, one of the few major enviro groups to beam onto the disaster that is ethanol early:
We scored a victory this afternoon! Senators voted by a margin of 73-27 to end a major giveaway for dirty corn ethanol.
This vote is major progress in our fight to end subsidies for environmentally harmful industries -- progress that the pundits, as well as the powerful biofuels and agribusiness lobbies, would have called impossible just two years ago. But Friends of the Earth has been working with a diverse coalition of environmental groups, fiscal conservatives, agricultural interests, food producers and anti-hunger advocates to amass congressional support for ending ethanol giveaways -- and today we won bipartisan support from every corner of the country except the Corn Belt.
You -- Friends of the Earth members and activists -- own a big piece of this victory. Over the past two years, nearly 30,000 Friends of the Earth activists have taken action to educate policymakers about the environmental costs of corn ethanol and to call on Congress to end these subsidies.
Today, our voices were heard -- and senators sent a decisive message that the days of the biofuels industry living high off the taxpayers' hog have come to a close.
There is still more work to do -- the House still needs to vote to end the ethanol giveaway -- but today, join me in celebrating this win for the public and the environment.
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