On December 10 MRAA joined with 40
other organizations in an open letter to Congress and a full page advertisement
in Political, a Capitol Hill
newspaper, asking Congress to support several bills that have been introduced
in both the House and Senate which would eliminate the corn ethanol mandate in
the renewable fuel standard (RFS).
The
ad and open letter to Congress said the recent EPA’s newly released proposal
for biofuels is a small step in the right direction, but it is clearly
insufficient to effectively address the harmful federal policy and that only
Congress can solve the problem. The
production of corn ethanol now consumes approximately 40 percent of the corn
produced in the U.S. annually.
The
EPA’s decision will do little to reduce ethanol’s share of the annual corn crop
and virtually nothing to alleviate the broad economic and environmental damage
currently caused by using corn for fuel.
Farmers are increasing corn production by converting wetlands to crop
land.