This newspaper often uses the phrase "it's what's right for Missouri taxpayers" when a bill is brought forth by Charlie Shields or Sam Graves. Excuse me, but your bias has been showing for a very long time.
If the American people want to spend $5, $6 or $7 a gallon on oil because we refuse to change our habits, then by all means, let us do it. The Europeans pay big for fuel and still drive their vehicles 100+ mph on the autobahns knowing full well it's an expensive proposition to do so. Those that don't like paying find alternative transportation.
Forcing us to use ethanol is going to be revealed as the no-win game it really is over the course of the next few years. Most studies report that it takes more energy to create ethanol than it produces, it reduces an auto's gas mileage and gums up the fuel injectors more quickly. For these inconveniences, distillers receive a healthy subsidy from taxpayers to make the stuff. So we pay at the pump, pay at the garage and pay with our tax dollars. Gov. Blunt's 10% ethanol mandate also fed his wife's investment with subsidies and guaranteed sales. But the newspaper did not have much to say about that absolute conflict of interest. Innovation comes when there is a demand, not a forced mandate of questionable motives. Just recall the late 70's gas shortages when the Japanese were providing cars people wanted and ate the US automakers' lunch. The soybean mandate is cut from the same cloth as ethanol, regardless of Charlie's added conditions of forced consumption. And it's not the consumer who will benefit from this.

Using alternative fuels does make sense. Oil prices are skyrocketing, prices at the pump are 'wallet depleting' and we are heavily dependent on volatile foreign nations. Ethanol and biodiesel give us the opportunity to become less dependent, clean up our environment and save money at the pump. Don't think it's making a difference? Currently Missouri has the second lowest gas prices in the nation, due in part to the Missouri Renewable Fuel Standard. Ethanol is cheaper than gasoline and adds to the fuel supply helping keep the prices you pay to fill up, down. The plants producing these alternative fuels are helping revitalize local communities and keeping dollars in the nation and in the state. The process that produces these biofuels also produces by-products that can be fed to livestock, increasing our feed supply.

What doesn't make sense is the hesitation to use these alternatives. At the present, they are the only vialble alternative to foreign oil. Where is the sense in rejecting the better alternative when it is helping our economy, keeping dollars in the pockets of Missourians, and helping our environment? Biofuels are a good idea. Let's use our good sense and embrace them.

Take a look at the following link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.... It's only one of many articles reflecting the environmental concerns regarding ethanol. You pull data from Ethanol.org, I'll pull data from Stanford University. (See above link.)Anyone can prove almost anything with the right statistics. PS - I'll not use the "E" word in whole again in this post since the paper took it upon itself to add a biased link to the word. Nice to find this out after the fact.
Gas prices are cheapest in Missouri, at least in part, for the same reason we have some of the worst highways: Missouri has the 5th lowest gasoline taxes in the lower 48 states. According to AAA, the national cent-per-gallon average tax is 47 cents. Missouri's cpg is 36 cents, only 4 cents higher than the lowest state, Wyoming. Add 11 cpg to bring our taxes to the national average and we get within a dime of the national average pump price per gallon. Iowa's average AAA price per gallon is 3.19. The taxes are only 4 cents higher in Iowa than in Missouri. Take that 4 cents out and the price is still 3.15, a dime higher than Missouri. Missouri's E production capacity is currently 186 Million gallons per year. Iowa has a production capacity of nearly 2 Billion gallons of E each year. If E10 = cheaper gas, why, with 10X the capacity, aren't Iowa's pump prices cheaper than Missouri?
"The process that produces these biofuels also produces by-products that can be fed to livestock, increasing our feed supply." Sorry, but I don't see how taking 56 lbs of corn and turning it into 17 lbs of distiller's grain is "increasing" the feed supply for the farmers who raise cattle, hogs or chickens. Many recent articles in many publications describe the plight of the livestock farmer due to high corn prices.
My point in my original post - and now - is from a libertarian point of view: when a need arises, someone will fill that need. I don't agree with anyone that forces me to pay tax dollars to subsidize a private industry product and then forces me, by law of questionable motive, to buy the product that I've already partially paid for once. If the American public is not willing to change its oil consumption by carpooling, taking public transportation, buying a hybrid or any number of other ways, then we should be ready to pay for that selfishness.