One of the more bizarre coalitions ever to form in Washington is trying to kill a creature of Washington: corn ethanol.

The oil industry, environmentalists, taxpayer groups, livestock growers and foreign aid groups all want Congress to repeal the mandate requiring a 15 percent blend of ethanol in gasoline.

More than 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop goes to ethanol, combining with a continuing Midwest drought to drive up corn prices. In a conference call Monday, refiners said it wrecks everything from car engines to outboard motors to chain saws.

Scott Faber, a lobbyist for Environmental Working Group, said ethanol has destroyed more wetlands and grasslands in the last four years than were wrecked in the last 40 and as far as greenhouse gasses go, it is “worse than the Canadian tar sands.”

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/02/05/ethanol-worse-than-the-canadian-tar-sands/

It's nice to see the greenies come around even if it is for something as discredited as CO2 based AGW hysteria.

There seems to be a decent yet quiet push on this lately. From the radical Gate, to the leftie NYT to the rightie Heritage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/science/earth/in-fields-and-markets-guatemalans-feel-squeeze-of-biofuel-demand.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=world
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/02/07/ethanol-mandate-leads-to-social-unrest/

Here's my favorite from the NYT article : The current American mandate, established in 2007 by Congress, can be waived by the Environmental Protection Agency, but, according to law, such adjustments focus on domestic issues like cases in which biofuel “requirements would severely harm the economy of a state, a region or the United States,” the agency said in an e-mail when asked for comment.

I just love it when a government subsidy creates a boost in a targeted economy but when the ill effects outside the target become obvious, the hit to the targeted economy is cited as why not to change or in the case of ethanol 50% up.

Note: The current mandate is 10% and the EPA is upping it to 15%. In 2011 the US used 45% of its corn crop for ethanol. That was with the 10% mandate.