John Hoeven Trying To Rescue Failing Ethanol Plant

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Written By:
Rob Port

Feb 7, 2012
12:14pm

The ethanol plant in Walhalla, ND has been failing for two decades now. Most recently, in the wake of Congress ending subsidies and trade protectionism that was propping up ethanol in America, ADM announced that it would be closing the doors at this plant.

But into the fray jumps Senator John Hoeven, who wants to work with ADM to find a way to keep the plant open.

ADM has not said what it will do with the plant when it closes. U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., on Tuesday said he spoke with a company vice president about the possibility of working with state and local developers and private investors to keep the plant operating under new ownership.

“Our primary concerns are first to make sure that employees are taken care of and second, that the company work with us to try and find another company to resume production at the facility,” Hoeven said.

The plant opened in 1985 as Dawn Enterprises. It changed hands twice in the late-1980s and early 1990s and has closed and reopened several times throughout its history, its fate tied to fluctuating gas prices and various subsidies and tax incentives, the Grand Forks Herald reported.

What we have is an ethanol facility that has remained open for two decades only because of subsidies and special political favors. Because our politicians, in all their wisdom, have decreed that America must use ethanol.

This is very definition of picking winners and losers in the marketplace, something Republicans aren’t supposed to be in favor of. Politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, have decided that ethanol should be a winner in America and they’ve spent hundreds of billions, and decades of time, trying to make it so. It’s crony capitalism.

But markets are stubborn things, and ethanol just can’t compete.