Ruben Willmarth: Lots of bad people benefit if ethanol junked

Re “Broken Promises, politics of corn ethanol” (Page 3B, Nov. 25). Writer Karen Kerrigan certainly paints a compelling picture, listing some amazingly large numbers with no need for references. It seems there are no apparent benefits to producing that 10 percent of our auto fuel inside the U.S. instead of importing it, who would have thought?

But she forgot to mention several other major supporters of getting rid of the ethanol mandate, our good friends in Russia, Iran, Venezuela and, of course, ISIS, who all depend on us to buy the crude oil they are selling in order to fund their popularity-challenged governments and foreign policies. We mustn't forget the “Military Industrial Complex,” whose business is booming from the likes of ISIS. And let’s not forget the gasoline producers who would get an 11 percent increase in sales overnight; I’m sure that they would like that, too, and would promise not to raise their prices once the competition is gone!

This story was originally published November 30, 2015 at 2:35 PM with the headline "Ruben Willmarth: Lots of bad people benefit if ethanol junked."