In the first decade of the 21st Century, both the Bush and Obama Administrations, along with Congress, have been enamored of an energy policy that relies on federal mandates and production subsidies to promote ethanol use as a cure-all for a host of problems. Yet the rationale for those policies does not rest on any objective empirical evidence that they work or are more effective than a policy of simply relying on competitive markets to realize our goals of energy security, economic security, and environmental quality. In Corn Ethanol, Ken Glozer provides a factual evaluation of the major claims made by those who have advocated an ethanol policy and answers a number of important questions. When did the policy start? How did it evolve? Who were the key officials that formed and shaped the policy? And, most important for understanding the continuing support for the policy and the obstacles to reform, what were the major political and market forces that drove it? His finding – after three decades of federal subsidies, ethanol remains uneconomical even with the subsidies, trade protection, and the blending mandate. Ethanol policy is in reality nothing more than a wealth transfer policy disguised as an energy policy.
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