Ethanol losing influence in Congress

Politico
By DARREN GOODE 6/21/11 10:25 PM EDT

When Rep. Bill Archer — then the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee — slipped in language in a key Republican tax-cut package in 1997 stripping out subsidies for corn ethanol, he ran into a brick wall.

That obstacle was in the form of Chief Deputy Whip Dennis Hastert, who reminded Speaker Newt Gingrich that he would lose the crucial support of nearly three dozen farm-state Republicans if he allowed the language to stay. Gingrich — who personally intervened to stop a prior attempt to squash ethanol help in 1995 — quickly acquiesced and the language was history, allowing the subsidy to continue.

Now, after major losses in the House and Senate last week, the ethanol industry is missing the influence of those pro-ethanol congressional leaders.

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