As the midterm elections approach, President Biden is being chastised for his ineffective reaction to the highest level of inflation in forty years.
The president’s latest half-baked idea to lower fuel costs by increasing ethanol mixes may backfire by increasing food prices.
In the summer, the Biden administration is suspending an environmental law that prohibits the use of petrol containing 15% ethanol, or E15. Corn is used to make ethanol.
The president claims that his proposal would save customers 10 cents per gallon, despite the fact that they are facing the highest gas prices in the country’s history. However, by pushing up demand for maize, which meat producers need to feed their cattle, the move may worsen food inflation.
According to the National Chicken Council (NCC), Biden’s idea will harm consumers. Mike Brown, the group’s president, stated that corn is the most expensive crop for poultry farmers.
This administration’s increased and artificial demand for maize will very certainly raise the price of corn and all food goods that rely on corn and corn oil inputs. We’ll see what it accomplishes at the petrol pump, but at what cost to grocery shoppers who are already coping with the greatest inflation in 40 years.
Biden’s choice is not universally panned. Producers of ethanol and maize growers who stand to gain from increasing demand believe food inflation fears are exaggerated.
Growers just need to produce a miniscule quantity of corn to enhance E15 output, according to Troy Bredenkamp of the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol advocacy group.
In March, inflation increased by 8.5 percent year over year, with food prices increasing by 8.8 percent. The crisis in Ukraine is partially, but not entirely, to blame for the increase.
Biden has been urgently trying to stave off widely expected election losses for his party by blaming Russia for the bad economy, often invoking the phrase “Putin’s price hike.”
President Biden has been chastised by Republicans for limiting domestic oil output, but it looks that Biden is determined to keep bandaging the wound.
