Ethanol and gas prices

This is an article from one month ago. Funny, I don't recall hearing much about it then. And strangely, fingers are being pointed everywhere BUT the most obvious causes of the price increases.

Ethanol shortage could up gas prices

Gasoline prices will be unusually high and shortages might occur this summer, because the U.S. ethanol industry can't keep up with the demand for fuel-grade alcohol to mix with gasoline, the head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration told a Senate committee Wednesday....

Senate ... Senate ... hmmmmmm

...Ethanol ? grain alcohol made mainly from corn in the USA ? is being promoted by the auto and ethanol industries and the government as a substitute for gasoline, usually in a mix called E85 that is 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.

But the comments Wednesday at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee underlined HOW DISTANT A GOAL that is. The hearing wasn't even about a goal as ambitious as E85. It was to discuss ethanol as a substitute for MTBE, a clean-air additive in gasoline. Replacing it with ethanol would require only about 8% as much ethanol as E85 requires.

Refiners have used MTBE for years and now are discontinuing it because MTBE can taint water supplies and Congress has refused to protect them from MTBE lawsuits. Ethanol is the only ready substitute....

The MTBE protections SHOULD be a no-brainer. After all, it was Congress that mandated it be put IN the gas to begin with! Oops

Not the only factor, but a BIG one. And why Bush's suspension of the Clean Air Act requirements on those fuel blends is probably one of the few things that WILL actually do something to bring the prices back down some in coming weeks.