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By Vladimir Posted in Alternative Fuels | Energy | Ethanol — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Well, the love affair between the Senate and corn-based ethanol appears over almost before it started. This, from the Wall Street Journal. Link requires subscription. Emphasis added.

Corn Ethanol Loses More Support

Two dozen Republican senators on Friday -- including Republican presidential candidate John McCain (R., Ariz.) -- asked the Environmental Protection Agency to ease requirements mandated by Congress in 2007 to blend more ethanol and other renewable fuels into the gasoline supply.

[snip]

"With the price of everyday meat, chicken, bread and eggs rapidly increasing, we are asking the EPA to use the flexibility that Congress gave them, because so many families cannot afford the increasing prices at the grocery store," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R., Texas). ...

So far, it appears unlikely that Washington, in an election year, will make the drastic cuts sought by critics of U.S. subsidies for corn ethanol. Any loosening of recently passed mandates for increased ethanol production will have to overcome opposition from senators representing farm states.

President Bush also reiterated his support for corn ethanol on Friday. While acknowledging that ethanol is "part of" the reason for high food prices, he disputed the notion that it has been "the main cost driver" for recent food-price increases. "I'd much rather be paying our farmers when we go to the gas pump than paying some nation that may not like us," Mr. Bush said in a speech Friday.

But there are signs that doubts about the wisdom of current U.S. biofuels policy are mounting.

A number of lawmakers are calling for loosening mandates in a recently passed energy law that requires an increase in the use of ethanol and other biofuels to roughly five times their current level -- to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

A sweeping farm bill under debate in the Senate also seeks to accelerate the U.S. shift away from corn-based ethanol, by proposing to reduce the current 51-cents-a-gallon credit to 45 cents. Another provision of the bill would create a new credit for so-called cellulosic ethanol -- which is made from wood chips, switch grass and other nonfood stocks -- of $1.01 a gallon.

Oh, Lord. Here we go again.