Federal energy policies need to move beyond corn-based ethanol and look for the next generation of alternative fuels that don't pit food, feed and fuel needs against each other.

If you want to pay less for the meat and poultry you buy to feed your family, sign our petition.

Stop the Policy of Burning Corn in Your Gas Tank!

While many factors that contribute to rising food prices are mostly out of our control, like the weather, there is one underlying domestic factor that we can control: burning our food and animal feed in our gas tanks.

U.S. government policies require that a certain amount of "biofuels" be mixed into our gasoline. The most common biofuel used is ethanol made from corn. The government then gives fuel blenders a tax credit — with your taxpayer dollars — of 45 cents per gallon of ethanol they produce. These subsidies will cost Americans over $6 billion in 2011.

Tariffs are also in place to protect the ethanol industry from having to compete with imported ethanol.

As a result, ethanol production has consumed over almost 40 percent of U.S. corn. This huge rise in corn demand from ethanol producers has sent corn prices soaring.

Corn is a key part of the diets of animals produced for food — like chickens, turkeys, cattle and pigs. When corn prices rise, farmers and ranchers produce fewer animals because they can’t afford the feed. The results is smaller meat supply, which drives higher prices at the grocery store.

That means you’re forced to pay for this ethanol policy twice: in taxes that subsidize the ethanol industry, and in higher food prices at the grocery store.

If you want to pay less for the meat and poultry you buy to feed your family, sign this petition and share it with your friends.

PETITION: I support "Corn For Food, Not Fuel." Federal energy policies need to move beyond corn-based ethanol and look for the next generation of alternative fuels that don’t pit food, feed and fuel needs against each other.