WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans have asked environmental regulators to use their power to halt the country's plans to expand ethanol production amid rising food prices.
Twenty-four Republican senators, including presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona, sent a letter May 2 to the Environmental Protection Agency suggesting it waive, or restructure, rules that require a fivefold increase in ethanol production over the next 15 years.
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 increased the ethanol mandage to 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol by 2015 and 36 billion by 2022.
But McCain and other Republicans said those rules should be suspended to put more corn back into the food supply for animal feed, and to encourage farmers to plant other crops.
Congress gave the EPA the authority to waive the mandates or structure them differently if the mandate resulted in adverse unintended effects.
"This subsidized (ethanol) program -- paid for by taxpayer dollars -- has contributed to pain at the cash register, at the dining room table and a devastating food crisis throughout the world," said McCain, in a statement.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas), chairwoman of the Republican Policy Committee, said, "With the price of everyday meat, chicken, bread and eggs rapidly increasing, we are asking the EPA to use the flexibility that Congress gave them because so many families cannot affort the increasing prices at the grocery store.
Ethanol, which is blended with gasoline, currently accounts for roughly 5 percent of the nation's vehicle fuel mix. Under renewable fuel mandates that percentage would rise to about 22 percent by 2022
A spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency said regulators will consider economic impact of renewable-fuel requirements when deciding whether to suspend the rules.
Spokesman Jonathan Shradar said the Bush administration remains committed to ethanol as an alternative fuel because of its potential to "get our nation off its addiction to foreign oil."
Farmers have responded to federal ethanol incentives by planting the largest crop of corn in 60 years, leaving fewer acres for soybeans, oats and other agricultural staples.
Tighter crop supplies means higher production costs for food processors of all types.
Also signing the letter to the EPA were Republican Sens. Wayne Allard Colorado; John Barrasso, Wyoming; Robert Bennett, Utah; Richard Burr, North Carolina; Susan Collins, Maine; Bob corker, Tennessee; John Cornyn, Texas; Mike Crapo, Indiana; Jim DeMint, South Carolina; Elizabeth Dole, North Carolina; John ensign, Nevada; MMike Enzi, Wyoming; Lindsey Graham, South Carolina; Orrin Hatch, Utah; James Inhofe, Oklahoma; Johnny Isakson, Georgia; Lisa Murkowski, Alaska; Richard Shelby, Alabama; ted Stevens, Alaska; John Sununu, New Hampshire; David Vitter, Louisiana; and Roger Wicker, Mississippi.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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