(Continued from page 42)

• December 2007 -- Congress passes the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Bush signs it into law. It expands the renewable fuels standard to require 36 billion gallons of ethanol and other fuels to be blended into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel by 2022. Corn ethanol production would max out at 15 billion gallons in 2015. Corn is selling for $3.77.
• January 2008 -- A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences predicts that the ethanol mandate will increase nitrogen pollution in rivers, worsening the Gulf of Mexico's dead zone, which cannot support sea life.
• February 2008 -- A study in the journal Science warns that if U.S. biofuel policy encourages farmers to plow into untouched grassland or farmland that has been set aside for conservation, it will undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. That's because plowing into grassland releases carbon dioxide. The Department of Energy responds that the new fuel standard can be met without plowing into any conservation land.
• -- The amount of farmland set aside for conservation suddenly decreases. About 34 million acres are enrolled in the government's voluntary Conservation Reserve Program, a drop of about 2 million from 2007.
• May 2009 -- President Obama's EPA takes the first steps toward implementing the new ethanol mandate. Government experts conclude that corn ethanol is, on average, 16 percent better than gasoline when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. The law requires that new ethanol plants be 20 percent better.
• -- Enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Program falls again, this time by nearly 1 million acres.
• March 2010 -- After lobbying from the agriculture industry, EPA publishes its final rule on the new ethanol mandate. The new analysis shows ethanol is 21 percent better than gasoline, slightly better than required by law. As part of the analysis, the government assumes corn prices will rise only slightly, to $3.59 a bushel, by 2022.
• August 2010 -- Corn sells for $3.65, already eclipsing the government's long-term price estimate.
• -- For the first time on record, ethanol is the No. 1 use for American corn, eclipsing livestock feed. Some 2.4 million more acres disappear from the Conservation Reserve Program.
• February 2011 -- Corn sells for $5.65a bushel.
• -- Farmland acreage set aside for conservation continues to fall, this time by 173,000 acres. About 4.8 million acres have been lost since 2006.
• January 2012 -- A 30-year-old federal subsidy for ethanol expires, along with a tariff on imported ethanol. Ethanol blenders were getting a tax credit of 45 cents per

(Continued on page 44)