The first two thirds of Obama’s speech today got my hopes up that he was backing away from the corn-ethanol shtick. But the last third brought me down to earth. Even if corn-ethanol takes third place in his speech now, the corn-belt senator would probably never drop support for corn-ethanol subsidies, which may be the biggest greenwash ever.
All around, his proposals are better developed than in his speech one year ago. He proposes to raise fuel economy standards by 4 percent per year, instead of just 3 percent. He also wants to subsidize Detroit’s move to hybrid vehicles. And he supports a carbon cap-and-trade system. What would work much better would be to tax carbon emissions and raise the fuel tax. But they don’t call taxes the third rail for nothing.
