House Majority Leader John Boehner said Tuesday that a temporary reduction in fuel ethanol import tariffs would help lower motor fuel pump prices.
WASHINGTON — House Majority Leader John Boehner said Tuesday that a temporary reduction in fuel ethanol import tariffs would help lower motor fuel pump prices.
"We don't have enough ethanol in production today. It's coming on board, but if we were to temporarily reduce the tariff on ethanol coming into our country, I think that would ease the pressure that's out there, resulting in lower gasoline prices," the Ohio Republican told reporters.
President Bush last week also called on Congress to lift the tariffs now on fuel ethanol imports.
Asked if there were enough votes in both the House and Senate to lift the ethanol tariffs, Boehner said: "I think it's possible."
But that could be a tall order based on the attitudes of key Midwestern senators, including Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the panel which would likely review tariff changes. Iowa is the nation's largest producer of corn, the most often used feedstock for U.S. fuel ethanol.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday evening in the Capitol, Grassley called lifting ethanol tariffs "a wild idea."
"Why do you want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg?" Grassley said of the U.S. ethanol industry. "Why does this president want to be any more dependent on the importation of ethanol than on the importation of petroleum?"
Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota and other farm state senators sent a letter Tuesday to Bush, asking him to reconsider his call for dropping the foreign ethanol tariff.
"This is not the time to call into question the role that home-grown renewable fuels can play in reducing prices at the pump or our dangerous dependence on foreign oil," they said.
But Boehner said that people in the ethanol industry are not necessarily opposed to the idea.
"There are people in the ethanol industry who are supportive of this, because to the extent that they can use imported ethanol to help establish the market while these new ethanol plants are being built, (it) could be a big benefit to them long-term," he said.
Legislation has been filed in both the Senate and House to end the ethanol tariff.
U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said Tuesday that Bush was ready to discuss removing the ethanol import tariff with lawmakers. "The president has expressed an interest in it, and is willing to talk to Congress," Bodman told reporters.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, whose panel has jurisdiction over tariff changes in the House, said he was prepared to examine proposals altering ethanol tariffs.
"We're looking at putting together a package to be responsive to concerns," Thomas, a California Republican, told reporters. "That clearly could be an item in the package but we've made no decisions."
He said his panel also would examine "other provisions related to crude oil, oil production, gasoline, and the need to eliminate ... the somewhat nonsensical division in the U.S. on what fuels are available to go where, especially if they contain ethanol."
Caribbean nations are now allowed to ship up to 269 million gallons of ethanol to the U.S. market without being slapped with the normal 54 cents-a-gallon duty and a 2.5 percent ad valorem tariff.
However, ethanol exports from the region are expected to fall far short at only 80 million gallons.
(Additional reporting by Tom Doggett)
Source: Reuters
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