Obama’s Biofuels Policy Tension

Ethanol subsidies are popular among voters in the American Midwest, where farmers grow millions of acres of corn to produce the biofuel. It’s no surprise, then, that Barack Obama – as a senator representing Illinois – has embraced such subsidies. Yet while ethanol may be popular politically, it has proven disastrous as a matter of policy: Research suggests that producing ethanol creates more greenhouse gases than burning ordinary gasoline, and economists also blame the biofuel for a precipitous rise in worldwide food prices. One of Obama’s own advisers warns that US biofuels policy must change course. But with so many electoral votes at stake in the Midwest, is this change that Obama can believe in? – YaleGlobal