Progress on ethanol...

The Energy Blog reports:

Various news agencies reported on Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman's statements at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, that the U.S. "will need to have more imports of ethanol," if it is to meet the new mandate to cut gasoline use.

Bodman also said that he did not see a 51-cent-a-gallon subsidy to U.S. farmers remaining in place beyond 2010 or import tariff on ethanol of 54 cents a gallon beyond 2008. These remarks were made in regard to Bush's proposal outlined in Tuesday's State of the Union address in which the president said that he aims to cut gasoline use by 20 percent by 2017, mostly by replacing the fuel with ethanol, and by expected improvements in automobile fuel economy.

I'm not going to get into the entire ethanol debate on this post, but I think every environmentally minded person can agree that the tariff is bad. There is some concern about countries clearing rain forest to supply us with ethanol after the tariff is lifted. The subsidy is also bad? If you require a certain percentage of ethanol to be used, then why go a step further and subsidize its production? It is an unneeded subsidy which keeps gas prices down and encourages driving.