Ethanol mandate drives up prices, should be eliminated

South Carolinians are forced to fill their tanks with a fuel blend that provides less value for the buck and can drive up grocery prices, thanks to a federal law that requires gasoline to contain 10 percent ethanol, which has less energy than straight gasoline.

The federal law mandating the use of ethanol is a classic illustration of the law of unintended consequences. Thanks to the renewable fuel standard, everyone who uses gasoline blended with ethanol gets fewer miles to the gallon and must fill up more often. Beyond that, using corn to produce ethanol jacks up the cost of staples ranging from cooking oil to cereal and beef.

Congress approved the renewable fuel standard in 2005, when the United States depended on imports for 65 percent of its crude oil. But we have since become a much smaller importer of oil, which demonstrates that the ethanol mandate is no longer needed. Last year, imports shrank to 28 percent, and they’re still falling, as surging domestic oil production due to technological advances in drilling continues to break production records. Energy analysts believe that by 2020 the United States will import just 11 percent of its daily oil needs. Yet the Environmental Protection Agency continues to require refiners to add more ethanol into gasoline. The use of biofuels is on track to grow from 18.1 billion barrels this year to 18.8 billion barrels in 2017 and 36 billion barrels by 2022.

Now is the time to scratch the standard. Corn-based ethanol accounts for virtually all of the biofuels being produced in the United States, and it has serious downsides. Food crops are being used for fuel. Prairies are being plowed under to boost corn production. Groundwater levels in the corn-belt are falling sharply. And corn ethanol increases ozone smog and greenhouse-gas emissions.

If only because everything should be done to save consumers money at the service station and grocery store, Congress must back off from the biofuels mandate.