The presidential campaign is officially upon us. House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced that he wants not just to preserve, but to expand ethanol subsidies from the present 10-cent-per-gallon tax deduction for the corn-derived fuel product. The Archer-Daniels-Midland conglomerate owns 50 percent of ethanol capacity, much of which is based on Iowa corn.

The addition of ethanol to gasoline (in a one-to-ten blend known as "gasohol") helps reduce carbon monoxide emissions by as much as 22 percent by increasing the fuel's oxygen content, while reducing fuel mileage by only 2 percent. However, since ethanol is more volatile (prone to evaporative hydrocarbon emissions), use of gasohol would increase emissions of volatile organic compounds (an important urban smog precursor) by as much as 20 percent and nitrogen dioxide emissions by about 8 to 15 percent. Ethanol is also water-soluble and cannot be transported by pipeline, and would substantially increase the emission of other pollutants such as aldehydes, which are believed to be potent carcinogens. Without subsidies, ethanol costs about a dollar more than gasoline per gallon, and gasohol costs 10 to 20 cents more. The Congressional Research Service also estimated that ethanol production sufficient to displace 5 percent of gasoline consumption would require a corresponding displacement in the agricultural market, leading to $13 billion increases in food prices annually, or over $2 per gallon of ethanol produced.

[Ed.: David Pimentel of Cornell University determined that it takes 1.7 times as much energy to make a gallon of ethanol than is supplied by the fuel.]

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