Earlier this week, Associated Press writer Dee-Ann Durbin http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/22/AR200605220 0684.html  reported that, "Automakers said Monday they are trying to get more ethanol-capable vehicles on the road quickly, but warned that consumers in the meantime should not use an E85 ethanol blend in conventional vehicles or try to convert their vehicles to use E85.

"'Your vehicle was built a certain way for a certain reason. You really shouldn't tamper with that,' Mary Beth Stanek, who manages General Motors Corp.'s partnerships with ethanol producers, told members of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee http://agriculture.house.gov/ .

"The committee was meeting at Oakland University in suburban Detroit.

"About 5 million vehicles on U.S. roads can run on E85, which is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. GM, Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG say they are capable of ramping up E85-capable vehicle production quickly as long as consumers are able to buy the fuel. About 685 of the nation's 165,000 fueling stations sell E85."

Steven Pearlstein http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR200605230 1904.html , writing in yesterday's Washington Post, highlighted the various ways in which ethanol is subsidies by government.

"Let's consider the case of ethanol, which thanks to numerous government policies has now overtaken Manhattan real estate, derivatives trading and high-tech start-ups as the investment opportunity du jour for the smart-money set.

"For starters, there's the 51-cent rebate on the federal fuel tax for every gallon of ethanol added by refiners to their gasoline products. Or, if they prefer, refiners instead can take a 54-cent credit off their federal income taxes.

"And then there is the federal mandate, written into last year's energy bill, that will require refiners to buy a minimum of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by the year 2012, nearly double the current production.

"To encourage investment in plants to turn corn, sugar or agricultural wastes into ethanol, there's a 10-cent-a-gallon tax credit for Osmall' producers, which is now defined as anyone producing up to 60 million gallons. At the current market price of $2.90 a gallon, that would be a $175 million-a-year business.

"And a full accounting would also include the government's price supports for corn, including that used for ethanol.

"Of course, it wouldn't be right for the government to stimulate all that production and then open the border to cheap Brazilian ethanol, so Congress very thoughtfully imposed a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff on imported ethanol.

"And let's not forget the myriad state subsidies. They range from direct producer payments (16 states) and tax credits (seven states) and fuel tax reductions (eight states), to grants and subsidized loans and requirements that government car and bus fleets run on ethanol-based fuels.

"With all that government-induced demand, and the price of gasoline going through the roof, it should be no surprise that the wholesale price of ethanol (a gasoline substitute) has reached $2.90 a gallon. That's double what it was only a year ago. And with the cost of ethanol production around $1.25 a gallon, that works out to an operating margin of more than 50 percent."

Meanwhile, Bracken Hendricks, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress http://www.americanprogress.org/site/c.biJRJ8OVF/b.8473/  and Ana Unruh Cohen, the Director for Environmental Policy at the Center for American Progress, authored an article regarding renewable energy that was posted yesterday at The Washington Post webpage http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR200605230 1291.html .

There, the American Progress writers pointed out that, "Farm-based renewable energy, and in particular biobased fuels, have the capacity today to deliver a secure and stable supply of fuel, provide support for farmers, create long-term jobs for rural communities, and make tangible reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. American farmers are struggling to compete in today's global marketplace, while an uneven international playing field in agriculture keeps millions of small-scale producers in the developing world mired in poverty. Farmers around the world share a common goal and a mutual frustration: the inability of the global trading system to deliver a fair market price for their products.

"In Growing the World's Energy Future http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1241597 , the Center for American Progress has proposed a plan to increase domestic farm revenues from energy that would reverberate through the global economy in mutually beneficial ways. Our energy program would boost our national security by reducing oil imports and by linking U.S. agricultural competitiveness to the alleviation of poverty and despair abroad -- two key elements in the appeal of terrorism in the developing world."

And Des Moines Register writer Philip Brasher http://www.dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060524/BUSINESS01/60 5240359/1030  reported yesterday that, "Sen. Hillary Clinton http://clinton.senate.gov/ , who once opposed requiring motorists to use corn-based ethanol in their cars, proposed Tuesday to dramatically boost use of the fuel.

"The New York Democrat called for $1 billion for research on making ethanol from plant cellulose, the fibrous stuff found in everything from corn stalks to wheat straw, grass and wood. Ethanol is now made almost exclusively from grain.

"'We have the capacity to make nearly 4.5 billion gallons of ethanol, but that is a long way from helping us deal with our gas problems,' Clinton said in a speech at the National Press Club. 'We need to be moving on a much faster track.'"