Bad Idea

POSTED BY FROSTY TROY

The corn-into-fuel ethanol program has been around for years but has gained traction from President Bush's program to cure America's "addiction to oil" by using biofuels.

Diverting agricultural land to energy production is a major factor in the rise of worldwide food prices.

We've had food riots in Mexico and Egypt. Even in the U.S., Costco and Sam's Club are rationing rice.

Had the Bush Administration and Congress the courage to slap a big gasoline tax on drivers after 9/11 – or even in 2006, when the President made his "addicted to oil" speech – it would have been a better energy policy than the homographic panacea they've given us.

We could have reduced consumption, cut oil imports, kept low-income drivers whole by rebating their gas taxes with income tax breaks, and used the rest of the proceeds for deficit reduction or something else useful.

Food would be cheaper. So would fuel, because demand would be lower and we'd probably have fewer financial speculators, who some experts think are responsible for oil's march from $64 a barrel a year ago to a peake of well over $140.

Turning biological waste like wood chips into fuel makes a lot of sense. But devoting vast acreage of America's breadbasket to fuel – about a third of the U.S. corn crop is dedicated to ethanol – is a terrible idea, as we're now seeing.

Supposedly miraculous and painless cures have a nasty tendency to backfire. Both in scary movies and in the even scarier real world.