Burning Biofuel

Yesterday, the governor of my ex-state of Texas put in a request to the EPA to relax federal regulations requiring the use of ethanol, claiming that these regulations were behind the well-documented worldwide increase in the cost of food. Makes sense - an artificial market for ethanol may be re-routing corn from feeding people to feeding cars, right?
But it's not true. According to this study, food prices in Texas aren't really impacted by the higher corn prices that result from mandated ethanol production. In fact, the most significant cause to the increase is... energy costs, which to my knowledge are suppressed, however slightly, by ethanol production. Dammit. Now, the federal mandates do cause an increase in the price of livestock feed, but the structure of the livestock industry is such that it is "unable to pass costs on, either up or down the supply chain," according to the study. Of course, since it would go straight into their pockets, this industry is pretty psyched about the governor's request.
Corn does make it into our food supply another major way - via high fructose corn syrup. Of course, the food that has this wonderful stuff in it isn't really a worry of anyone who is genuinely worried about increasing food prices. But, I would guess Coca Cola and Frito Lay are psyched about Gov. Perry as well.
Of course, Gov. Perry may be excused for not knowing about this report, because it comes from the far-flung land of... Texas. Texas A&M. Where he went to school. Dammit again.
Well, it's just a request to the EPA. Ultimately, the decision will be made based on science and good stewardship of the environment. Oh yeah - in a poll published Thursday by the Union of Concerned Scientists, more than half the EPA scientist respondents said they experienced "incidents of political interference" in their jobs. Dammit dammit dammit.
What really muddies the water here is that corn ethanol is by all accounts a pretty awful fuel. Cellulosic is much better. Of course, who will tell the corn lobby that their nutritionally worthless crop isn't too great for its latest purpose either.
Ultimately, though it's not as efficient as other ethanols, I think we should focus on two things. First, it's not much less efficient than gasoline. Second, and more importantly, the cultural awareness and potential habit changes brought about by corn ethanol production are worth it.