Council Member Calls for Congress To Abandon Support for Ethanol
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Council Member Eric Gioia and hunger advocacy groups are calling on Congress to abandon support for ethanol that some say has contributed to recent food shortages.
“What you have here is a well-intentioned but flawed Congressional policy,” Mr. Gioia, who is sponsoring a resolution calling on Congress to change its ethanol policy, said yesterday at City Hall. Supporters of federal mandates on ethanol use and subsidies for its production have argued that it can help reduce oil consumption, but the policy has come under increasing attack as many experts have attributed rising food costs in part to the increased use of crops as fuel.
Mayor Bloomberg, who has frequently criticized Congress for its ethanol policy, said yesterday at a press conference in Lower Manhattan that the country should pursue other strategies to break its dependency on foreign oil. “Supporting the corn industry is not a smart thing to do,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a press conference in Lower Manhattan.
