Corruption by Ethanol

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124389966385274413.html

This policy is the predictable result of violating a fundamental principle: government should not select the means of achieving pollution reduction; it should confine itself to determining the scope of the reduction and the maximum cost to the economy. Bush the First followed this principle in establishing the highly successful and efficient sulfur emissions-trading regime in the early nineties. They did not mandate which technologies coal plants had to implement. They simply set a price on the emissions and let the private sector figure out the best way to reduce emissions. But, these morons today are trying to micromanage environmental policy and they are failing. This is a bipartisan failure, by the way. And it is induced as much by political corruption as it is by outright stupidity. Yet, given the ever present temptations of large scale corruption and the Democratic tradition of grotesque misapprehension of free market economics, I suspect we will see more of this costly stupidity in the grand cap-and-trade program currently in the offing.