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As you sit down for Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family this year, imagine looking across the table and not seeing a turkey. It may be hard to fathom, but it is a reality too many Americans face this year.
Those are words from an opinion piece by Marie Brill, Senior Policy Analyst at ActionAid USA. She goes on to blame ethanol for the rise in turkey prices this year.
Chris Thorne, Director of Public Affairs at Growth Energy says that just doesn’t make sense.
“To say that ethanol is solely responsible for commodity prices of corn hitting these highs and seeing this volatility, that’s just ignoring too many other things. It ignores weather. It ignores foreign trade, demand from China. China can make a market moving purchase in one day and really goose the price of corn on the market. It ignores the weak dollar. But more than anything else what this ignores is the reality of non-commercial speculators who are playing the market.”
Brill also says wasteful subsidies like VEETC, the ethanol blenders credit, cause food prices to increase, thus keeping turkeys off some tables. She calls for Congress to make sure it isn’t extended next year. What she seems to miss is that almost no one is calling for its extension.
“I don’t know quite what the purpose is of trying to run in front of a parade that’s already started,” Thorne said.
He adds writers like Brill simply seem to trumpet the oil industry talking points against ethanol, when in fact “there will be people who are going to spend many more dollars this year driving to Thanksgiving dinner at a family’s house, because gas is 60 cents more a gallon today than it was a year ago, than they will spend on the increases for the price of that turkey on the table.”
So Thorne says when people want to know where Thanksgiving meal price increases are coming from, they need to look at the gas pump.
Hear more from Thorne:
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