The argument over ethanol misses the crucial point for energy policy: it is not so much what fuel you use, and how efficiently you use it. An SUV that gets 12 mpg will burn a lot of gas, and a lot of ethanol. A hybrid that gets 40 will burn far less of either.

Switching to ethanol (or 85% ethanol fuel) will accomplish nothing if our average mpg does not rise. America can cut its oil consumption in half by vastly increasing its ethanol consumption. But if it doubles the fuel efficiency of cars, oil consumption will also drop by half, AND pollution from cars will drop by half.

We should be putting our technology into building more efficient cars.