This editorial doesn’t contain new information but its call for an “ethanolics anonymous 12-step program” memorably encapsulates the subsidy addiction syndrome that increasingly passes for U.S. energy policy.

 Ethanol craze could lead U.S. down wrong row

Free Press, February 01,2007

What this country needs, and soon, is an Ethanolics Anonymous 12-step program. Sober thinking on the subject seems in short supply, however, as politicians of all stripes trot out the plant-based fuel as the easy answer to the nation’s energy challenges. A 2005 energy bill doubled the federal production mandate for ethanol, to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. The federal government (besides subsidizing the crop from which most ethanol is made) offers a variety of different tax credits as a means of boosting ethanol production, and slaps a hefty tariff on ethanol imports as a way of protecting America’s farmers from competition, which also keeps ethanol prices high.The president upped the ante again in his State of the Union speech, setting a new target of producing 35 billion gallons of ethanol and other biofuels by 2017.

But even as the biofuels bandwagon gains momentum, warning signs are appearing of a potential crack-up ahead. Hints of it can be found in the pages The New York Times, which stands out for its skeptical, level-headed coverage of the issue.

The Times recently ran a story on growing doubts about the ethanol boom. The story points out that, “Corn-based ethanol can only marginally reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil. But it does little, if anything, to improve energy efficiency, and the mounting concern of some politicians is that relying on corn is leading to collateral damage in other parts of the agricultural economy and threatening the nation’s status as the leading corn exporter. The big increase in the works may mean consumers would end up paying more at the supermarket.”

Food companies say competing with energy companies for corn is going to drive up prices. Livestock producers are warning that high corn prices also will increase the cost of meat.

“Once we have a corn-based technology up and running, the political system will protect it,” Lawrence J. Goldstein, of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, told the Times. “We cannot afford to have 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol in 2015, and that’s exactly where we are headed.” Rather than plunge ahead, Goldstein says politicians need to “step back and reflect on the damage we have already done.”

And that’s where the Ethanolics Anonymous 12-step program comes in.