Tea Party backers, greens unite against ethanol tax credit

A grab-bag of groups from across the political spectrum are pushing Senate leaders to let a major ethanol tax break expire at year’s end.

Friends of the Earth, FreedomWorks (a conservative groups that supports the Tea Party movement), Taxpayers for Common Sense and food industry trade groups made their case in a letter Monday to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

The tax credit for ethanol blenders helps boost the market for the corn-based fuel, but the groups call it wasteful and pointless.

“Congress has the opportunity to end the $6 billion a year subsidy to gasoline refiners who blend corn ethanol into gasoline. At a time of spiraling deficits, we do not believe Congress should continue subsidizing gasoline refiners for something that they are already required to do by the Renewable Fuels Standard,” the letter states.

The Renewable Fuels Standard is the federal program created in a 2005 energy law and expanded in a 2007 energy bill that requires increasing volumes of ethanol and other renewable fuels in the nation's gasoline supply.



“Experts like the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office have concluded that the subsidy is no longer necessary, and leading economists agree that ending it would have little impact on ethanol production, prices or jobs,” the letter continues.

Other signers include anti-hunger groups like Oxfam, the American Conservative Union, the National Chicken Council and a suite of other food industry groups, as well as several other environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club.

This post was updated at 11:50 a.m.