“We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories…All this we can do. All this we will do.

“Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage.”

–President Barack Obama Inauguration Speech--Jan. 20, 2009.

“We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.

Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this nation, and it can also be the standard around which we rally. On the battlefield of energy we can win for our nation a new confidence, and we can seize control again of our common destiny.”

From--President Jimmy Carter’s infamous “Great Malaise Speech” July 15, 1979

Among the many great challenges of the Presidency of Barack Obama will be his ability to thwart history again and solve America’s lingering “energy crisis.” Declared back in the 1970’s when OPEC exposed the soft vulnerability of America’s car culture to embargo, every President since Nixon has promised a solution to U.S. dependence on imported crude oil and failed. In fact, the crisis of oil addiction has gotten only worse as the decades have passed and American car companies have chosen to build Hummers and SUV’s over hybrids, and people have bought them for status.

Also long time environmentalists concerned with climate change have been waiting for real action on renewable energy since President Carter outlined his grand plan—in his notorious “Great Malaise” speech. President Carter chastised Americans who “tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption” and called for an end to foreign oil dependence and compared energy conservation to “an act of patriotism.” Public reaction to his call for America to seek “a new sense of purpose” in the energy crisis is still openly ridiculed to this day even though Carter set forth many good initiatives and few bad ones, like corn-based ethanol.

Americans might be waiting long after 2022 for their five million green jobs and true energy independence if the pink elephant of alternative energy a.k.a. the Ethanol Lobby has its way. President Obama’s glorious plan for a “clean energy future” baffles environmentalists as it continues to promote biofuels, like corn-based ethanol, as an answer to our energy problems despite the facts.

The jury is out and the facts are in. The American consumer has voted with his money: the corn-based ethanol industry is not a fiscally viable alternative energy source and environmental scientists are stating that it’s production and use is actually contributing more to global warming than regular gas.

Corn-based ethanol’s profitability without government assistance—subsidies and tariffs on foreign ethanol-- are years off in the distant future, if not impossible to achieve. The industry received $3 billion in 2007 -- almost twice as much as solar, wind, geothermal and other biomass combined. Recently, the Environmental Working Group analyzed data from the Energy Information Administration, and found corn-based ethanol received three-quarters of all tax benefits doled out by Washington for renewable energy.

Even with new federal and state laws designed to create a market for the bio-fuel, billions in federal subsides, the devotion of politicians like Barack Obama, Tom Vilsack and George Bush II and the unlimited resources of the giant agriculture lobby, ethanol is a failure. We need a new direction in alternative energy and I am asking the Obama administration “to spend wisely” and “reform bad habits” in its fight against global warming and for U.S. energy independence.

This giant albatross of alternative energy—ethanol--won the favor of Obama early on and in the waning days of the presidential campaign, Heather Zichal, Obama’s Campaign Policy Director for Energy, Environment and Agriculture, announced at the opening of an Ohio ethanol plant: “Now is not the time to pull the rug out from under the ag policies that help (ethanol) to find profitability in the marketplace.”

During the campaign, Candidate Obama called for additional funding for biofuels and next-generation ethanol (Cellulosic ethanol made from switch grass) to reach targets of 60 billion gallons of “renewable fuels” by 2022. In order to create a market for ethanol, Obama is calling for all new cars to be "flex fuel"—able to run E85 (85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gas) by 2013.

The appointment of former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack to be Secretary of the Department of Agriculture is seen as a signal to corporate agribusiness—some of the biggest polluters in America—that the government feedbag isn’t being removed anytime soon. In fact, they’re lining up at the public trough for more billions of tax dollars, subsidies to produce bio-fuels like corn-based ethanol, which has failed to deliver either energy independence or savings.

The Washington Post said “Vilsack's nomination was cheered by groups representing big agricultural interests, which praise him for his support of biotechnology and subsidies for corn-based ethanol.”

To make matters worse, a Democratic Congress passed the Bush “Energy Independence and Security Act”, mandating ethanol production to be doubled to 15 billion gallons by 2015 up from 6.5 billion gallons produced in 2007. Its passage was a giant victory for the corporate agri-business lobbyists and yet another tremendous defeat for true alternative energy advocates, who can’t even get a seat at the table.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Magellan Midstream Partners, owner of the longest refined-oil pipeline in the nation, is now seeking to develop the first "dedicated ethanol pipeline" from Iowa to New York City and hopes President Obama will approve a loan guarantee of $3.5 billion through the Department of Energy.

But the news on ethanol continues to be bad. A new Stanford University study on alternative energy proposals claims that bio-fuels—like ethanol--actually cause more air pollution, requires more land to produce, generates less horsepower than regular gasoline and costs the consumer more, despite being priced less at the pump.

Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, recently published the first comprehensive study of major alternative energy proposals in Energy & Environmental Science magazine stating that “Ethanol-based biofuels will actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply and land use than current fossil fuels."

Jacobson’s study is being called “the first quantitative, scientific evaluation” of the currently proposed U.S. alternative energy-related solutions. He assessed not only their potential for delivering energy for home and vehicles, but also scientific data on their impact on human health, global warming, national energy security, water and land allocation, wildlife displacement, water and air pollution, reliability and sustainability.

Among the top rated choices are, in order, wind, concentrated solar, geothermal, tidal, solar panels, wave and hydroelectric, all based on his assumption that all vehicles would be using that particular fuel source.

Bringing up the rear—again—is corn and cellulosic ethanol which Jacobson calls “the most damaging choice we could make in our effort to move away from fossil fuels” and that this energy source would continue to be a factor in the more than 15,000 air-pollution related deaths each year in the U.S.

"There is a lot of talk among politicians that we need a massive jobs program to pull the economy out of the current recession," says Jacobson. "Well, putting people to work building wind turbines, solar plants, geothermal plants, electric vehicles and transmission lines would not only create jobs but would also reduce costs due to health care, crop damage and climate damage from current vehicle and electric power pollution, and would provide the world with a truly unlimited supply of clean power."

Another battle over corn resources is taking place in the grocery store and in the farms and ranches around the Midwest. It pits corn farmers, corporate agri-business and the Ethanol Lobby against family farmers, livestock producers and environmentalists.

In Missouri, the “E-10 mandate” requires all gasoline sold in the state to contain 10 percent ethanol whenever ethanol is cheaper than gas. But there is a grassroots movement building to repeal the 2006 ethanol mandate. Missouri State Rep. Mike Dethrow, who initially voted for the E-10 mandate, has filed legislation to lift it.

Some livestock producers in the state, who need low corn-feed prices to compete, believe the mandate sides with the grain producers by guaranteeing a market for corn whenever ethanol is cheaper than gas.

During the height of the commodities speculation bubble in 2008, corn prices rose dramatically, causing animal feed to skyrocket and beef and other corn-based products prices to soar.

As the markets bottomed out, corn farmers who benefited from high corn prices began to suffer and are suffering now. Last year, corn prices topped $7 a bushel but have dropped to less than $4 a bushel at many grain elevators. The volatility in corn prices forced several ethanol manufactures into bankruptcy in 2008, as the ethanol boom turned to bust.

VeraSun Energy, the nation’s second largest ethanol producer, declared bankruptcy which idled Nebraska ethanol plants in Albion, Ord and Central City. Also construction on ethanol plant projects around Nebraska at Aurora, Carleton and Wahoo have stopped.

Ethanol producer Advanced BioEnergy itself defaulted on a $10 million loan to build another plant in that state where it operates a Fairmont, Neb., plant as well as two sister plants in South Dakota.

Last summer, Denver-based ethanol producer Biofuel Energy declared it didn't have enough cash to cover $46 million in losses on contracts for corn, ethanol and the natural gas used in its operations and filed bankruptcy.

Now farmers throughout the Corn Belt, who hold futures contracts on grain priced at $6 or $7 a bushel, are now being asked by the bankrupt companies to sell their corn at around $2 a bushel. Not even legal contracts to corn farmers are being upheld, and many who once supported the industry are becoming wary of doing business with ethanol producers, who are not required to be bonded and secured.

As the debate over energy independence and alternative fuels rages, President Obama should take a second look at the alleged benefits of expanded ethanol use and give more resources to real alternative energy solutions that are both environmentally sound and fiscally sustainable.