Fox News "The Glenn Beck Program" - Transcript

Interview

FOX NEWS CHANNEL "THE GLENN BECK PROGRAM" INTERVIEW WITH REP. CYNTHIA LUMMIS (R-WY) INTERVIEWER: GLENN BECK
SUBJECT: ETHANOL SUBSIDIES

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MR. BECK: I got into The New York Times today, which I have to, it's the paper I get in New York. Ethanol -- ethanol just recently a savior -- is struggling. Really? Who would have seen that one coming? New members of Congress are welcome to come on my show. I actually like to have the freshman members because, you know, they haven't sold their soul to the devil yet. I thought it would be good to get them on before, you know, they become tainted by the politics in Washington. We have Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis. She has reached out to our office, and she is here now. She is from the great state of Wyoming where I have family members.

How are you, Congressman?

REP. LUMMIS: I'm very well, Glenn. Very well. Thanks for having me on your show.

MR. BECK: You bet. People out in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho area, they just kind of a different attitude, and they use commonsense an awful lot. You are affected by the ethanol there in Wyoming. This thing has been a scam, I contend, from the very beginning. Burning up our food supply never made sense. But now it's falling apart. Why?

REP. LUMMIS: Well, Congress substituted its judgment for the marketplace. In 2005, Congress decided to require that 10 percent of fuels be ethanol and ethanol garnered from corn. When you convert corn to ethanol, it consumes as much energy as the new product produces in energy. So it's inefficient, it's expensive and, quite frankly, it doesn't burn as well as oil and gas.

Now, they were well intentioned, but when you try as a member of Congress to substitute your judgment for the marketplace, frequently you get it wrong. And in fact, they did.

MR. BECK: Okay, so here's what I want to ask you because I want to come back to energy here in a second. But I have to ask you, first of all, did you vote for the stimulus package?

REP. LUMMIS: Oh, no.

MR. BECK: Okay, good. Yeah, you're in the House. Nobody did. Okay. Here's what I just don't understand. The same people who say, yeah, burn up your food supply, it's going to be fantastic, every time Congress does, as you just pointed out, substitutes their own gut and their own wisdom for the markets, it turns our wrong. And now we're spending money like it's going out of style. Is there anybody there in Washington that is walking the hallways? I mean, can you grab a bunch of people in the hallways and just go, hey, guys, no, that doesn't work? When will they learn their lesson?

REP. LUMMIS: Well, sometimes I feel a little bit like the man in Tienanmen Square who was standing in front of the tank shouting no. And this is an example of that to be the case. I really believe that corn is a political fuel, that we would not have the emphasis on corn if the Iowa caucuses were not the first in the presidential lineup.

Consequently, now some of the responses that are being considered to this are to say, well, maybe we need to make more of the blend coming from ethanol, not 10 percent but maybe 12 (percent), 14 (percent) or 16 percent. So we're compounding our substitution of our judgment in the marketplace for something even worse. It's tremendously frustrating around here.

MR. BECK: I have so much more to talk to you about on energy, but unfortunately, because we had to take that press conference, I've run out of time. But we will have you back. Thank you so much, Congresswoman.

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