Ethanol

As the drought continues to afflict the nation's corn belt, hog and chicken farmers are competing with ethanol factories for scarce and increasingly expensive corn. Meat producers say it's not a fair competition, because government rules call for a minimum level of ethanol production, no matter what the cost. They're campaigning for a suspension of those rules.

After being hyped as a homegrown remedy to America's dependence on foreign oil, the federally supported corn-based fuel ended up under attack as an environmental and economic failure. Now the smoke has cleared, and U.S. ethanol producers are booming.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is calling for more choices at the gas pump. Today he announced a new program to add 10,000 flex-fuel pumps across…