High gasoline prices are making headlines throughout the nation. What isn't getting as much attention is increasing the use of ethanol as a partial solution to the high prices ... until now, that is.

The Consumer Federation of America recently released a report that found oil companies could reduce the price motorists pay at the pump by eight cents a gallon or more if they blended more ethanol into their gasoline.

For those consumers lucky enough to be in a region where ethanol is blended, they will save $80 to $100 this year by choosing ethanol blended gasoline. By any standard, ethanol is a real bargain.

There are currently more than 4 million flexible-fuel vehicles in existence on America's roads. You well may be driving one today. These are vehicles manufactured with the ability to burn E-85, a product that is 85 percent ethanol blended with 15 percent petroleum.

For those consumers lucky enough to be able to purchase E-85 for their car or light truck, the savings could be as much as 68 cents per gallon when compared to regular unleaded gasoline.

At present the wholesale price of ethanol is 30 to 40 cents per gallon cheaper than wholesale regular unleaded gasoline.

When the federal ethanol tax credit is factored in, ethanol becomes nearly $1 per gallon cheaper than the wholesale price of regular unleaded gasoline.

That is a significant price difference. I'm a farmer, and I can tell you that farmers know the value of switching to lower-cost products, when they are available.

Ethanol prices have fallen nearly 30 percent since January, just as crude oil and petroleum gasoline prices have hit record highs.

Ethanol production in the United States has doubled over the past four years and continues to expand to meet demand as the renewable, environmentally-friendly replacement for the fuel additive methyl tertiary butyl ether under requirements of the Clean Air Act.

In conjunction with meeting environmental requirements, the ethanol industry is poised to help America meet current transportation fuel requirements and lower U.S. dependence on fossil fuels and foreign-derived crude oil.

Yet the excess ethanol being produced today that could help bring down fuel costs for consumers and decrease our need for crude oil imports cannot find increased markets and utilization with petroleum fuel blenders.

That means while ships loaded with foreign oil continue heading for the United States — worsening our trade deficit — a lower-cost, cleaner-burning, domestically produced renewable fuel is abundantly available and under-used.

The energy bill making its way through Congress would help.

In its current form, the bill creates a Renewable Fuels Standard requiring the U.S. fuel supply consist of at least 5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012.

Some members of Congress are calling for an even higher standard of 6 billion or 8 billion gallons, and ethanol production is sufficient to meet that demand.

The petroleum industry opposes anything higher than the 5 billion-gallon standard proposed four years ago, although ethanol production has doubled since then.

It's time for Congress to give consumers a break at the pump and pass comprehensive energy legislation that contains a robust renewable fuels standard. As a farmer and consumer, it just makes good economic sense.

Have corn for dinner, not driving

Congress should give American motorists a break at the pump in the pending energy bill, but special interests and legislators beholden to them are once again loading the bill down with pork barrel projects.

Ethanol is a prime case in point. Ethanol's advocates have long argued that increasing the amount of ethanol used in gasoline would be a boon to the economy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and improve the air.

Yet, more than two decades and tens of billions of dollars in subsidies, tax credits and fuel mandates have done little other than to further enrich Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM), the multibillion dollar agri-giant that produces more than 70 percent of the ethanol used in America. In return, ADM has been a major campaign contributor to key farm state legislators in both political parties.

The economic impact of ethanol subsidies is negative. One report by the U.S. Agriculture department determined that every $1 spent subsidizing ethanol costs consumers more than $4.

There are several reasons for this. First, every bushel of corn devoted to ethanol production leaves less for human consumption and animal feed -- thus people pay more for corn, beef, poultry and pork than they would absent the subsidies. And prices for other goods are also higher since farmers, in pursuit of lucrative subsidies, devote more acreage to corn rather than other, unsubsidized, produce.

Second, the costs of growing, distilling and blending ethanol into gasoline makes it 51 cents more per gallon to produce that regular gasoline.

The clamor for increased use of ethanol also raises the specter of the current problems surrounding the use of MTBE, the EPA-sanctioned fuel additive that oil producers began blending with gasoline in the mid-1990s to meet stricter clean-air standards in high-smog areas like New York City, New England and Southern California.

Although not carcinogenic in humans, MTBE has caused huge problems recently because it oozes from leaky storage tanks and leeches rapidly into ground water contaminating local water supplies.

The EPA recently found that only 16 of 3,776 U.S. water systems suffered contamination and most of the spills are in the final stages of clean-up. Despite that, the issue has attracted a swarm of personal injury lawyers who are salivating about the prospect of asbestos-type multimillion dollar payoffs from MTBE cases.

Ethanol has similar drawbacks -- ones that also could spark costly litigation. Because it absorbs water, ethanol cannot be shipped through existing pipelines used to transport unblended gasoline -- the water it absorbs could separate causing pipelines and fuel lines to freeze, and perhaps burst, during cold weather. The same problem will make engines run less efficiently in cold-climate areas.

Worse, most studies show that it takes more energy to produce and deliver a gallon of ethanol than the energy it produces -- a net loss of energy. Imported fossil fuels are used to produce, distill and transport ethanol.

Thus requiring that the United States use five to eight billion gallons of ethanol -- a mandate that Congress is currently considering -- means burning more, not less, imported oil and natural gas.

Ethanol would likely disappear from the marketplace absent federal subsidies and mandates. Like so much of the pork Congress bestows upon special interests, ethanol is bad for the economy, bad for consumers and bad for the environment.

Corn deserves a place on the nation's dinner table for its nutritional value, but it doesn't belong in the gas tanks of millions of U.S. motor vehicles.