Although it’s still over a month away, the Legislative Services Office is already posting proposed bills for Wyoming’s 2012 Budget Session. A short two-page bill indicates a step in the right direction from the Transportation Committee.
Senate File 8 (SF0008) would repeal Wyoming Statute 39-17-109(d)(i) through (vi), which requires the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) to give Wyoming ethanol producers a credit of 40 cents per gallon of ethanol produced. Ethanol is alcohol produced from agricultural products—typically corn—which is mixed with gasoline and pumped into our cars. Fabulous claims that ethanol is environmentally friendly and will reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil have been thoroughly debunked, but the misery it unleashes on engines is very real. The repeal would go into effect in January 2013, but this past July current law closed off producers from qualifying for the credit.
Aside from all of the problems with ethanol itself, which provide enough reason to not spend tax dollars on it, Wyoming’s subsidy is yet another very curious piece of state corporatism. In recent years just one producer, Wyoming Ethanol in Torrington, has received the ethanol subsidy. Wyoming Ethanol employs around 24 people, and although it purchases agricultural products in Goshen, Platte and Laramie Counties, it also does so in Nebraska, and the law only requires 25% of “Wyoming origin products” for production. According to WYDOT, between 1995 and 2010, the agency granted a total of $30.8 million in credits. For Nebraska corn and 24 Wyoming jobs.
If ratified, this bill will follow hot on the trail of the federal ethanol subsidy, which Congress let expire last weekend. That subsidy ran for 30 years and cost around $20 billion. Ethanol is a scandal in Wyoming and across the country, but it is so old we’ve learned to live with it, like Madonna. Perhaps it was necessary to wait until the subsidy was eclipsed by even worse “alternative energy” scandals born during recent presidential administrations. Whatever the reasons, Wyoming’s budget and populace would be well-served by following the federal example and eliminating the state credit.
