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Good riddance.
That’s the refrain you’ll hear from politicians hungry for ways to cut the deficit, food and restaurant industry groups hoping to trim commodity costs, and traditional corn-based-ethanol foes and even some ethanol fans on the end of a tax credit that cost United States taxpayers $6 billion each year.
On Jan. 1, the industry awoke to no Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC), which provided a 45-cent credit to blenders and fuel marketers for each gallon of pure ethanol blended into gasoline. The credit, created in 2004 as part of the American Jobs Creation Act, was originally intended to make ethanol a more affordable substitute for the fuel oxygenate methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), which was being phased out because of pollution concerns.
