LAST CALL FOR ETHANOL? Is The End In Sight For America’s Biofuel Boondoggle?

Did we just hear the death knell for corn ethanol? Congress may finally be coming to its senses about one of the biggest green policy failures in America, as two bills were introduced yesterday to fix the corn ethanol mandate. . . .

To this point, US farmers have been diverting more and more of their corn crops towards ethanol refineries to satisfy EPA mandates stemming from the 2007 Renewable Fuels Standard. In 2006, before that standard went into place, just 23 percent of America’s corn crop went towards producing ethanol. That number rose to 43 percent last year.

Corn ethanol fails every test a biofuel could hope to pass. It doesn’t lower emissions; it raises them. It also raises the global price of corn, starving the world’s poor and possibly inciting riots. But EPA mandates are propping up this boondoggle. Producers are scrambling to snatch up biofuel credits to meet the federally-mandated quota this year because neither supply nor demand will be sufficient to produce the more than 13 billion barrels of ethanol required.

The bills working their way through Congress will also addresses the ill-conceived mandate for corn ethanol’s big brother: cellulosic ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol is considered an “advanced” biofuel, and it actually passes most of the tests that corn ethanol fails so miserably. But cellulosic ethanol still isn’t ready for mass production: there has been virtually no commercial production of the fuel, despite EPA quotas requiring nearly 20 million gallons since 2010.

The federal government’s ability to force green technologies into the marketplace has failed pretty much everywhere.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Is Your College Degree Worth It?

SENATORS RAND PAUL, TED CRUZ, MIKE LEE: Why Is The Senate Voting On A Bill No One Has Read? Because they don’t want you to know until it’s too late.

AT AMAZON, Spring Savings in Patio, Lawn & Garden.

Also, today only: ProForm Pro 2000 Treadmill, $999.99 (60% off).

INSTAVISION: Profits in Space! Entrepreneurs Are Scanning the Cosmos for Big Money. I talk with Chris Lewicki of Planetary Resources about asteroid mining and more.

KIMBERLY STRASSEL: Terry McAuliffe’s Solyndra: Running for governor of Virginia, the Democrat’s main business credential is fast turning into a crony-capitalist embarrassment.

BAD JOURNALISM IN ROLLING STONE? STOP THE PRESSES! Young Gun Expert Pictured in Rolling Stone: ‘Inaccurate, Biased Article.’ “Teenager Morrigan Sanders wants RS to actually interview her next time: ‘He should’ve gotten the opinion of women who shoot.'”

RECOVERY SUMMER! Retail Sales Fall . . . wait for it, wait for it . . . Unexpectedly! “Retail sales in the U.S. unexpectedly fell in March by the most in nine months as employment slowed, showing households ended the first quarter on softer footing.”

FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY continues to embarrass itself.

ROLL CALL: Why Are Murray and Ryan Even Trying to Forge a Budget Deal? Why not just go in regular order, resolve things at conference?

PRIVACY: The Hill: House lawmaker questions IRS over email search policy. “In a letter to the IRS on Thursday, Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee on Oversight, asked for the IRS to explain when it believes it can search emails without a warrant and how many searches it has conducted since 2010. He asked the agency to provide all internal memos and guidelines on its email search policy. Boustany also asked the IRS to provide information about whether it mines Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites for information on tax payers. . . . The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released internal IRS documents on Wednesday in which the agency claimed that, in many cases, it does not need a warrant to access emails, text messages and other electronic communications. The ACLU obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request.”

DAN MITCHELL: A Tax Haven Primer For The New York Times.

RULING-CLASS HYPOCRISY: Elizabeth Warren advocates a $22 minimum wage, but pays her own interns zero.

DOES ANYONE WATCH MORNING JOE BESIDES RIGHT-LEANING PUNDITS AND BLOGGERS LOOKING FOR STUFF TO DEBUNK? Joe Scarborough uses false al Qaeda talking point to push gun control.

BYRON YORK: Rush through Senate will kill trust in immigration reform.

Lately, nothing seems to go through the normal course of hearings, markups, conference, etc. Everything is rushed through. It’s like they don’t want people to know what they’re doing.

HANS VAN SPAKOVSKY ON HIGHER EDUCATION’S RACISM PROBLEM.

Faculty and administrative officers, and their professional associations, such as the American Council on Education, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the American Association of University Professors, overwhelmingly believe — firmly and unapologetically — that out-and-out racial and ethnic discrimination in college admissions is fully acceptable in the interests of “diversity.” Discriminating against culturally “nondiverse” Caucasians such as Suzy Weiss is, in their eyes, the right thing to do. And they want the Supreme Court to recognize such discrimination as constitutional.

How do we know that? Because scores of schools and their professional associations have recently filed amicus briefs in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin making that very argument. . . .

Suzy Weiss and many other high-school seniors across the United States are being discriminated against because of their skin color or because they have an epicanthic fold in their eyes. Such racial and ethnic discrimination is morally wrong, and neither “diversity” nor anything else can justify it.

Read the whole thing.

INCREASING SAFETY by eliminating traffic signals.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: White House budget director doesn’t know how much Obama’s budget increases the deficit.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: New Orleans Has a Soup That Supposedly Cures Hangovers. “Next time you’re struggling to overcome a raging hangover, try mixing up this dish in the kitchen: beef brisket, spaghetti noodles, hard-boiled egg, soy sauce, green onions, hot sauce. It may sound like a godawful mess but it’s got all the stuff to make you feel better – science proves it!” Stephen Green, take note.

I can’t think of the last time I was actually hung over. I came close when I hung out with some folks from Fox and the NY Post last fall, drinking Redbreast, but I sensibly stopped just in time. The benefits of experience. . . . .

DAVE RAMSEY: White House Wants To Cap Your Retirement Savings.

UPDATE: Reader Bill Akins says it’s worse than that:

Obama wants to cap IRA, leave huge government pensions intact.

Many pensions worth more than $3M, and pay more than $205K.

Good point.

KURT SCHLICHTER ON THE GUN BILL: As annoying at Toomey is, we should remember that this is like 2% of what the libs sought. They’re grabbing crumbs and calling them a cake.

IT’S BETTER TO FOCUS ON YOUR BOOK: The Stupid Things People with a Ph.D. say on Airplanes.

AT AMAZON, Coupons Galore In Groceries.

SHIKHA DAMIA: The GOP’s Problem With Minorities Isn’t That It’s For Small Government — It’s That It’s Inconsistently Small Government.

EVAN COYNE MALONEY (“HATING BREITBART”) RECOMMENDS “BENGHAZI 9-11,” an indie film project up for crowdfunding at IndieGoGo. See a trailer at the link.