We all know, from the June 20 UNEP/SEFI report (http://www.sefi.unep.org/)and so on, that renewables (not bioethanol) are a rapidly growing market. Renewable Portfolio Standards at the state level in the US have encouraged an accelerating flow of investment into wind, wave, solar, geothermal and other technologies. The EU countries are also big champions of renewables, and enjoy a continent-wide market to scale up technologies, seek solutions to intermittent supply problems (eg, via storing wind-generated energy), and so on. The US has been able to ignore the Bush-Cheney fossil-neck at the federal level, because California and other technologically advanced states have tough standards that are working (not perfectly, but that's another matter).

The question is whether to continue as is, betting on the advanced states and letting the laggards (ie, the South) be, or federalize some minimal target that Bush-Cheney and those who side with them will accept.

One potent economic reason for the US, at the federal level, to enact an RPS is that the Japanese are beginning to catch on. Sunday's electoral thrashing of the long-ruling Liberal Democrats by the Democratic Party of Japan included a proposal by the latter for 10% of electricity to be generated via renewables by 2020. This isn't a lot, but beats the LDP's target of 1.63% by 2014. The LDP is in thrall to the accident-prone nuclear industry (who are opportunistic peak-oilers, by the way) as well as unimaginative business leaders who see RPS as vaguely socialist. Their kind of thinking has seen Japan lose its lead in solar, do zip on geothermal (in spite of being so impressively tectonic), and otherwise squander a host of green-tech opportunities (domestically as well as overseas) stemming from the energy-environmental crisis.

Japan is a unitary state, so doesn't have RPS at the local level. When it does get a target at the central-state level, America will have another potent competitor. You people have already lost leadership in the car industry to the Japanese, so maybe you want to get serious on renewables.

Re: We all know that corn ethanol...is made entirely from fossil fuel inputs with exception of the sun growing the corn.

This is the crux of the error's being made here at TOD. How is it that fossil fuel is only a small fraction of the costs for me to produce corn as compared to land, seed and labor and surely is a small fraction of the cost for ethanol producers compared to the purchased corn, labor, plant, finance and management costs? Yet here at TOD this all gets ignored and changed into "ethanol is made entirely from fossil fuel inputs" with the sun's inputs almost dismissed. The bias is breathtaking.

The whole point of ethanol is not that there is a big energy gain but that liquid transport fuel (expensive) is made from corn and mostly natural gas which are cheap. Making something expensive out of something cheaper is the whole idea behind production. This is the fallacy behind EROEI which is a near religion at TOD. I have posted on this before, but maybe I should use westexas's technique and repeat the same idea over and over again. At least he seems to get somewhere repeating stuff. Or maybe his ideas are better. The idea that forms of energy can be changed from the less usable with the current infrastructure to the more usable seams to me to be dismissed here. Why? Energy is not finite. Fossil fuels are finite. A new supply of energy arrives from the sun every day. Transforming that energy into liquid transport fuel is a valid strategy for mitigating peak oil. Those that only want conservation (usually described in mandatory terms) should do the conserving. Go ahead do it. Those who can add to the supply of liquid transport fuel should do if they can.
Trying to stop those who are attempting to mitigate peal oil because their method doesn't suit the EROEI religion is a dead end. If you want conservation, fight for it and do it. I have no problem with that.

I am a constituent of Rep Jack Wamp, Tennessee 3rd Congressional district, who is a co-chair of the House Renewable and Energy Efficiency Caucus. While I disagree with him on many(if not most) things, I have met him on several occasions when he has had 'listening' sessions for voters in his district and I believe that he is sincere in trying to do what is best for his district. The problem becomes one of convincing him of the best path forward. I just sent him an email:

Rep Wamp supports HR 2927 as an alternative to HR 1506. HR 2937 relaxes the CAFÉ standards of HR 1506. Now Hamiliton County which is central to Rep Wamp’s District has an air quality attainment problem. Recently emissions testing was instituted for all cars licensed in Hamilton County. However about half the work force in Chattanooga drives in from surrounding counties many of which are in Georgia and Alabama. Also thousands of trucks pass thru Chattanooga on the Interstates every day. The emissions testing does not address these vehicles, but tougher CAFÉ standards would. Hamiliton County is also the headquarters of two major trucking firms. I am sure that they prefer HR 2927 which raises the CAFE standard on trucks to 32 mpg by 2022 as opposed to HR 1506 which raises the CAFE standard to 35 mpg by 2018. But should their preferences be put above the health and well being of the residents of the county?
However I understand the politics of the situation and even HR 2927 is preferable to having no CAFÉ standards in the Energy Bill at all.