Ted Poe: “Congress has a love affair with corn-based ethanol, and that love affair, Mr. Speaker, is on the rocks. Ethanol has led…”

“Congress has a love affair with corn-based ethanol, and that love affair, Mr. Speaker, is on the rocks. Ethanol has led to increased food prices, food shortages, and more pollution and less energy. As we have increased our reliance on ethanol, food supplies and prices have soared and have led to a global food shortage as customers stock up before stores run out. Shortages have led to food riots in Egypt, Haiti and other nations. There is an international shortage of basic commodities such as rice and wheat, and this has resulted in protests and riots. American consumers are reactionary. They read about the international shortage and the riots and they run to the store to buy more food, stocking up. Yesterday, Wal-Mart and Costco announced they were limiting purchases of rice. You can only buy four bags of rice on any one trip at Wal-Mart. Mr. Speaker, who would have thought that in the United States we would start having food rationing? Also, because of inflation of the prices of corn-based ethanol, other food products are going up. Prices on beer, bread, coffee, pizza and rice are dramatically increasing. Anything that has a corn-based product has also increased in price. In Mexico, cornmeal prices are up 60 percent. In Pakistan, flour prices have doubled. And even China is having a food inflation problem. In America, the cost of all groceries is skyrocketing.”