Al Gore: I Used To Be A Cornaholic

It's no secret why taxpayers are still shelling out billions of dollars to the ripened corn-ethanol industry: the Big Corn lobby. Just as oil state senators defended BP during the height of the spill, lawmakers in heavy Ag states are similarly beholden-at-all-costs to the powerful farm interests who get them elected.

But for a politician to admit this? That is a rare moment of candor.

Granted, Al Gore has drifted about as far away from his former political post as a farmer-turned-glam rocker, but still, his strong reversal of his 1990s-era support for corn ethanol is striking. According to Reuters:

“It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for [U.S.] first-generation ethanol,” the former vice president declared at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by Marfin Popular Bank.

“First-generation ethanol, I think, was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small,” he said “It’s hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.”

He linked his own support for the original program to his presidential ambitions.

“One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.”

Al Gore could be forgiven his early support for corn ethanol as an environmentally-friendly solution to get the U.S. off of foreign. Even many environmental groups were initially behind expanding the use of the fuel. But many have changed their tune, as, in the last few years, research increasingly has pointed to the large indirect carbon footprint of the fuel—essentially when we grow more corn to feed our cars, we need more land virgin land to feed our people (and the rest of the world). This leads to deforestation, often in tropical rainforest nations. In addition, the water quality and quantity impacts of growing corn fuel in the U.S. are also too large to ignore.

What's more, better alternatives to corn ethanol have emerged. It makes a whole lot more sense to support second-generation cellulosic fuels made from wastes, unwanted land, and non-food crops than it does to continue shoveling $6 billion a year to an industry that can already stand on its own.

There are just a few days left on the Congressional calender, and all Congress has to do is let the subsidies expire on schedule. This, however, requires they resist a last minute push from Big Ag—and unfortunately, it is unlikely that others will have the same revelatory moment as Al Gore.

As I wrote about previously here and here, an unprecedented coalition backs an end to the subsidies: environmentalists who now know better, like Al Gore; government waste watchdogs; free-market economists; segments of the food industry; and public health professionals, among others.

You can join in by signing onto a campaign sponsored by Sweeter Alternative, which represents the Brazilian sugarcane ethanol industry, in calling on Congress to let the subsidies expire this calendar year.

Photo credit: simone.brunozzi via Flickr

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