Klobuchar: Public loses $400M this month if ethanol compromise is not enacted

In Washington, a Senate compromise reached by Dianne Feinstein of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and John Thune, of South Dakota, that would end the ethanol tax credit immediately, generate deficit reduction and deploying $688 million in savings to blender pumps and small producer incentives, may not make it into tax law. Under the Constitution, the Senate may amend but not originate tax legislation, and after the ethanol compromise was left out of the Reid plan for deficit reduction, backers of the plan are not yet able to find a vehicle to which to attach the legislation. “There has to be a tax vehicle,” Senator Feinstein told the Congressional Quarterly. “There’s not one on the horizon,” she said.

Senator Klobuchar told the Digest, “That’s right, at this time there’s no vehicle for this program. But if we don’t get this ethanol tprovision, this month alone the public loses $400 million in savings. Also, we’ve lost a good model for how to reduce spending, in terms of how the ethanol industry handled this when they saw the support going away because of the importance of deficit reduction. It’s a model for the oil industry, which have collected subsidies for 100 years.”