Obama's Evolving Ethanol Rhetoric

Washington Post.com
By Alec MacGillis

Given that energy appears likely to be a dominant issue in this election season, Barack Obama's campaign may want to settle on a more consistent message when it comes to subsidies for ethanol, the corn-based alternative fuel that is hailed by some as a key resource in weaning America off foreign oil and forestalling global warming but lambasted by others as a wasteful boondoggle that is driving up food prices.

Since entering the Senate in 2005, Obama has been a staunch supporter of ethanol -- he justified his vote for for the Bush Administration's 2005 energy bill, which was favorable to the oil industry, on the grounds that it also contained subsidies for ethanol and other forms of alternative energy, and he has sought earmarks for research projects on ethanol and other biofuels in his home state of Illinois, the second-highest corn-producing state after Iowa.

Obama's support for ethanol is shared by many farm state senators (even Hillary Clinton came around after an ethanol industry took root in upstate New York) but it contrasts sharply with John McCain, who has for years been so critical of the subsidies that he decided not to compete in the 2000 Iowa caucuses.

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