Australia’s Productivity Commission says biofuels a bad deal all around

In Australia, the federal government’s economic advisor—The Productivity Commission—has called on New South Wales, Queensland and commonwealth governments to drop biofuel blending, saying the polices unnecessarily increase fuel prices for consumers. It also dismissed out of hand Queensland’s claims that ethanol blending creates jobs, pointing the finger at various policy attempts to do so through biofuels since 1980 but achieving little, saying instead that its environmental benefits are minimal while imposing additional costs on farmers.