FINALLY..

Who says no good news comes out of Washington? Thanks to congressional inaction, we’ve just seen the end of a 30-year boondoggle: federal subsidies for production of corn ethanol. Claims that corn ethanol was better for the environment than regular gasoline were disproved long ago, as it was proven that ethanol takes more enrgy to produce than it provides. Meanwhile, the subsidies have diverted millions of tons of corn from food uses to gas tanks, leading to food inflation in recent years.The program – which cost taxpayers an estimated $45 billion since 1980 – was hard to kill because of the clout of farm state senators and agribusiness, but, as of Jan 1, 2012, the subsidies are over. Now, we just need to kill the gov't rules which force the addition of ethanol to gasoline.