Ethanol: the cure-all that leads to higher gas and food prices

What's not to love about the Senate's unbelievably stupid energy bill? Besides a childlike hope in new technologies (magical biofuels, chimerical fuel-efficient SUVs) there's the vague language ("unconscionably excessive") that reminds us why "laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made."

Paying more at the supermarket? The Christian Science Monitor explains: "From milk to meat, US food prices spike upward"

The chief culprit is corn, namely No. 2 feed corn, the staple of the breadbasket. In answer to President Bush's call for greater oil independence, the amount of feed corn distilled into ethanol is expected to double in the next five to six years. Distillation is already sucking up 18 percent of the total crop. The ethanol gambit, in turn, is sending corn prices to historic levels – topping $4 per bushel earlier this year, and remaining high. All of this trickles down to the boards at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, affecting the price of everything from sirloin to eggs (which are up, by the way, 18.6 percent across the nation).

Whatever we do, let's not boost domestic oil production. Our dependence on foreign oil is higher than before the 1973 OPEC crisis and is projected to head higher:

More mad money for the mullahs and their madrassas!