by Rich Sabatini

Created on: March 30, 2009

Corn ethanol, Congress' answer to our transportation fuel woes, is struggling mightily. This highly-touted flexible fuel of the future is proving to be decidedly inflexible when it comes to alternative energy.

And because of the foolish shortsightedness of Congress, American consumers have been suffering under the burden from high worldwide corn prices that have added to the cost of almost everything including the cost of living,

And woe is Iowa, the state that's the biggest loser in the collapse of the ethanol energy boondoggle. It seems as though the corn belt is about to get belted, and right smack on its economic nose.

Barely a year after Congress enacted a law meant to foster a huge national ethanol enterprise, the goals lawmakers set for that industry are in jeopardy. Plants that make ethanol from corn had been sprouting across the Midwest. But now, with motorists driving less in the economic downturn, these same plants are shutting down virtually everyday.

And is it any surprise? Every time Congress sticks its nose into the laws of the free market, it backfires every time.

Corn ethanol-in a word-is a bust. And so are all the other related energy-producing industries such as wood chips, switchgrasss, and crop waste. But despite all the flowery predictions of the green energy enthusiasts, the U. S. is not about to become the Saudi Arabia of "soil produced" energy.

And for all the greedy investors who rushed in to build ethanol refining plants, it's back to square one.

Only months ago, refiners in some regions were buying up as much corn ethanol as they could to blend with expensive gasoline, effectively keeping pump prices down slightly. But those were the glory days of $4/gallon gasoline; and to the chagrin of the clean fuel lobby- those days might never return.

Since last summer, oil and gasoline prices have plunged while the price of corn, (from which virtually all commercial ethanol in this country is made) has remained relatively high. And so have food prices, which initially rocketed upward after congress' fateful ethanol mandate in 2007.

The alternative energy worshippers are about to discover that ethanol will only be the first to topple from the false gods of clean fuel. From the nation's 150 ethanol providers,10 or more companies have shut down an ominous total of 24 plants in just the last three months.

Most of the nation's largest ethanol producers have suspended production. Many of them are teetering on the brink.

But Congress never seems to learn about

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