EPA tries to slam corn... but can't bring themselves to do it. Yet.

CNN recently published a news article about the EPA’s newly proposed ethanol law. They want to push more advanced biofuels over the use of corn-ethanol because they claim that the production cycle of ethanol emits too many emissions, and that ethanol itself produces too many fuel emissions when in use. The EPA gave two energy-use scenarios on which to base the legislative decision; one that favors corn-ethanol and one that would prohibit all but one corn-ethanol production process while favoring other alternatives like cellusic ethanol energy.
The reason the EPA gave two very different scenarios and has not yet favored either of them is to buy time for the agency to meet within itself and determine how to calm its corn-based ethanol industry as well as increase lobbying efforts.
The corn industry is concerned about what information is being used to determine that ethanol emits more emissions than it saves. RFA President Bob Dineen said there was too much uncertainty about how the EPA made the indirect land-use calculations and questioned the validity of the data the government used in those calculations.
"The science of market-mediated, secondary impacts is very young and needs more reliance on verifiable data, and less reliance on unproven assumptions. Done correctly, such an analysis will demonstrate a significant carbon benefit is achieved through the use of ethanol from all sources," Dineen said. There are so many different factors that contribute to how many greenhouse gases are actually emitted, that any scenario would be difficult to plot. One must consider the fuel for tractors and transportation, which are coal-based, but also that pastures and cornfields are a huge source of greenhouse gas sinks. It is almost impossible to tell if ethanol, including the production process, is any better or worse than using coal and oil-based energy.
This problem of data accuracy and predictions seems to be a common theme among scientists and in the EPA. We read about this issue in State of Fear, but right now we are also able to see it in action. The EPA has many supporters to please, and by reducing the corn industry they are hurting many people economically, as well as loosing support. This is why they have not made any decisions yet, they have only proposed the idea that a law may need to be changed.
However, the US department of Agriculture is providing credit programs for ethanol firms, and the Department of Energy is giving the corn ethanol industry an $800 million stimulus package. Maybe the EPA will not have to worry about losing its corn-growing support base, since the farmers will be too busy spending all that money to notice.

The news article can be read here: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200905051317DOWJONESDJONLINE000557_FORTUNE5.htm