Ethanol’s gotten a bit of a bad rap here in the States of late, largely due to the billions of dollars of federal subsidies that are paid to the oil companies each year to blend this renewable domestic fuel into our gasoline.

There’s been plenty of rumblings from Washington to up the percentage of Ethanol in unleaded gasoline from 10% up to 15%. This has many folks up in arms.

I recently to test FlexFuel-capable 2011 Buick Regal Turbo with conventional gasoline and E85. It got me thinking … Rather than change the percentage of Ethanol in everyone’s gas, why not do more to encourage the use of E85 Ethanol?

Corn-based Ethanol is merely the first phase. It’s time for America to move to phase two, in force.

Ethanol can be distilled from a wide range of sources, from switchgrass, to municipal waste, and even brewery wastewater … with no impact to food supplies.