Trading One Addiction for Another?

Ronald Bailey | June 19, 2006

Ethanol may someday provide a significant proportion of our transportation fuels and help reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases that are warming the planet. Today the Chicago Tribune has a good editorial questioning the need for government subsidies for producing this fuel:

It is a good idea to encourage ethanol use, because it's a renewable resource that burns cleanly without the greenhouse gas problems of fossil fuel. Its expanded use could make us less dependent on oil from the ever-roiling Middle East. But if ethanol is going to be a significant, long-term fuel for this country, it's going to have to find its own place in the market. That won't come through a rigged system of subsidies and tariffs that protects domestic corn and sugar producers at the expense of American consumers....

Are we trading one addiction (oil) for another (government subsidies)?

Whole editorial here.