E85 Boondoggle of the Day: Indiana Pays Itself $20k Per Ethanol Station
Is Indiana's $20k per station taxpayer E85 conversion payout proving popular with pump jockeys? “The phone has been ringing off the hook," reports Cary Aubrey, program manager for Bioenergy Development at Indiana State Department of Agriculture. Considering that E85 conversion costs ten times that amount, and doesn't exactly do the honey fly thing with consumers, what's with the telephonic deluge? Our friends at Ethanol Producer magazine reveal that the subsidy is going to… government agencies. “It used to be stated that only public fueling sites could take effect of this opportunity,” Aubrey said. “Now it’s been opened also to what we consider local units, which would be towns, cities, counties, or township fleets.” But wait, that's not all (as if you thought it was)! "Consumers" at these sites receive an 18-cent sales tax deduction on every gallon of E85 sold. As they have done since July 2007. Do these flex-fuelers know the shell game going on? Do they Hell. “I think the soccer moms have figured out ’hey, I’m driving a flex-fuel vehicle,'" Aubrey obfuscates. "'I can go over here and fuel and its 50-60-70 cents cheaper.’” Not to mention E85's decreased mileage. Literally.
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This whole E85 debacle is just showing how susceptible our government is to industry. The American corn industry, at that. Makes me rethink my stance on Chrysler dying within 3 years.
Is it considered rude to just point and laugh at those from Boondoggle Country?
So how long until my tax money gets used in a way that actually benefits me? And what happened to our free market economy? Can we please let the market determine the viability of ethanol without wasting our money on idiotic projects...
What of the food riots in Haiti? Alright, then. How about the price of Pizza? My local pizza shop just printed up a new flyer; the price of pizza went up 20% recently, mostly due (as told by the manager) to large jumps in the price of wheat (and cheese has increased significantly, too). E85 is a joke, mainly because it was pushed through by special interests, which (as we know) have a very narrow "worldview", consisting of "ME+$$$$=GOOD".