The Geography of Ethanol Support and Why Corn Ethanol is Doomed Without Taxpayer Dollars

From the Percolator Blog:

"Today the Senate voted 73-27 in favor of repealing a $6 billion tax credit for ethanol producers. The measure would end a 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for ethanol refiners and a tariff of 54 cents per gallon on imported ethanol. The bill’s passage may be a pleasant surprise — ethanol is, after all, not so great for the environment. But which senators voted in favor of the tax credits is all too predictable (see maps above, click to enlarge)."

From the WSJ, "Ethanol Suffers Rare Loss in Senate":

"A broad bipartisan majority of the Senate voted Thursday to end more than three decades of federal subsidies for ethanol, signaling that other long-sacrosanct programs could be at risk as Democrats and Republicans negotiate a sweeping deficit-reduction deal. The tax breaks, which now cost about $6 billion a year, had long been considered untouchable politically because of the power of farm-state voters and lawmakers. Iowa's role as the site of the first presidential caucuses has further elevated the political potency of the biofuel. 

Presidential hopefuls made a quadrennial ritual of going to Iowa and pledging to support the tax breaks, tariffs and mandates that supported production of ethanol motor fuels from corn. This year, however, some Republican presidential candidates have pointedly refused to endorse ethanol tax breaks. Thursday's vote doesn't by itself doom federal support for the corn ethanol industry. The House is expected to reject the repeal as unconstitutional because tax bills must originate in that chamber, and the White House opposes it. But the 73-27 vote signals that once-unassailable programs could be vulnerable."

MP: Paul Gigot of the WSJ pointed out a decade ago that "ethanol is produced by mixing corn with our tax dollars." Hopefully, given the reality of our worsening fiscal situation, the Senate vote today signals that taxpayer funding of ethanol will eventually end, and ethanol will have to survive on its economic and scientific merits.  Simply put, without tax dollars, the current political-motivated recipe for producing so much corn ethanol is doomed.