On Wednesday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) stated that the Biden administration’s plan to help lower gas prices by promoting ethanol will end up increasing food prices because burning corn to make ethanol drives up the price of feeding livestock and exacerbates the corn shortage in Europe as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Lankford said, “[T]hey don’t want to do the most obvious things, that is increase supply. The way you bring price down is to increase supply. So, they fight against pipelines. They fight against export terminals. … Instead, they’re focused on things like, well, let’s just do more ethanol. And if we do more ethanol, that will bring down the price. The problem with that is, when you burn more corn for fuel, that means it’s also more expensive to be able to feed livestock, which drives the price of meat up across the country. And right now, Europe is desperately in need of corn. Because Ukraine typically sells their corn to them, and, obviously, they can’t do that this season. So, we should be selling more corn to Ukraine, but instead, the Biden administration wants to burn more corn for ethanol.”
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