Washington, DC – Responding to calls to repeal the secondary tariff on imported ethanol, U.S. farmer, commodity and ethanol leaders wrote to President Bush, calling his attention to the importance of a growing ethanol industry to the nation’s energy, economic, and environmental security, and reiterating support for the secondary tariff so that U.S. taxpayers aren’t asked to subsidize imports.

The American Coalition for Ethanol, Ethanol Producers and Consumers, National Association of Wheat Growers, National Corn Growers Association, National Farmers Union, National Sorghum Producers, and the Renewable Fuels Association pointed to factors such as oil prices, rising demand, drought, and declining value of the dollar as having more effect on the price of food than biofuels. They urged the President to avoid yielding to the misdirected efforts to blame ethanol for rising prices and to prevent American taxpayers from subsidizing foreign products.

“The 54 cent per gallon secondary tariff was enacted by Congress in 1980 to offset any incentive for imported ethanol to benefit from the 54 cent per gallon tax credit for ethanol blended into motor fuel,” the letter said. “This tax credit is taken by refiners who blend ethanol into motor fuel, not ethanol producers. The purpose of the secondary tariff is to protect American taxpayers from subsidizing imports, not to protect domestic ethanol producers.”

“To ignore the central role ethanol has in reducing oil imports and lowering gasoline prices would hurt consumers all across the country,” said Bob Dinneen, President of the Renewable Fuels Association. “Removing the tariff would not lower food prices. Such an action would halt development of new ethanol technologies and take the jobs and economic opportunity being generated by the domestic ethanol industry to foreign countries. I strongly encourage President Bush to recognize that skyrocketing oil prices play a far greater role in the complex issue of food prices than does ethanol and reject the efforts to remove the secondary tariff.”

“Ethanol is revitalizing rural communities, reducing our dependence on foreign oil and lowering the price at the pump,” said National Farmers Union President Tom Buis. “Those who wish to blame ethanol for increasing food prices are not basing their arguments on the facts. America’s farmers have the ability to provide a safe and abundant food supply while, at the same time, playing a vital role in becoming an energy independent nation.”

The entire letter is available on the Renewable Fuels Association website.