Sunday, November 28, 2010

Al Gore Turns on Ethanol

The Wall Street Journal had an online feature on Al Gore's epiphany on ethanol. Speaking to some Greek financiers, he estimated that the benefits of ethanol were "trivial," according to the Op Ed piece. "It's hard once such a program's put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going." Wow! In a sentence, that's the problem with our legislative system, but that's for another occasion.

"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the State of Iowa because I was about to run for President." Amazing.

We've talked about the ill-conceived ethanol cult in many posts, and it's always been clear to us that this was no silver bullet for greenhouse gases or for energy independence. If Mr. Gore is not running for any office, perhaps he should lead the choir about letting corn-based ethanol's subsidies and mandates fade away. No party is going to take this on, though.

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