"The 2005 energy bill contained the first-ever requirement that these fuels be mixed into the nation's gasoline supply. Beginning in 2006, the mandate came on top of massive subsidies and tax breaks already enjoyed by domestic ethanol producers.

The mandate quickly proved to be a mistake—raising rather than lowering fuel costs, sparking food price inflation, and invoking environmentalist opposition during its first two years. Nonetheless, a bill to increase the requirements nearly fivefold passed Congress easily and was enthusiastically signed by the President in December 2007. Thanks to this measure, America is now committed to 9 billion gallons of renewable fuels in 2008 and 36 billion by 2022. For at least the next few years, almost all of this mandate will be met by corn ethanol."

No, it may win a few votes in farm states, but it's a foolish idea. Ethanol from corn uses as much energy from fossil fuels, in its making, as the making of it supposedly saves. Perhaps there is a case for ethanol from sugar cane or, even better, switchgrass. But the fields now being turned to corn production from wheat, at a time when wheat production is threatened (see the weather in Australia and see the warnings of Norman Borlaug).

So here we are again, 162 years after another, much more celebrated set of Corn Laws were finally repealed, on grounds well-fertilized by Ricardo and his comparative advantage, iin 1846.

It's time to repeal the latest, and surely the least thought-out, versions of the Corn Laws -- the ones mandating the use of ethanol from corn in gasoline.

And, come to think of it, now that everything is being made in China more cheaply than anywhere else, from silk ties (there go the family businesses in Como), to cheesy children's toys (millions recalled for safety reasons ) and drugs (Chinese-manufactured heparin, banned for ditto), it is time to re-examine that touching belief, by free-market fundamentalists, that comparative advantage is all, and not national survival, or the survival of arts and crafts (see again, those Como silk-manufacturers now enduring near-extinction). 

But that's for another occasion. Right now, time for a little common sense about something else. Right now,  let's start with the foolishly mandated ethanol from corn. Repeal those Corn Laws.