“Ethanol does NOTHING to reduce dependence on foreign oil and in fact makes us burn more due to the fact it’s an MPG killer.”
Ethanol has nothing to do with reducing foreign oil imports. That was the sales pitch. Because we’re signatories to several trade treaties the US was taken to a world court and accused of subsidizing farmers in violation of a treaty. We lost, because we do subsidize farmers. So, our trading partners were all given permission under the treaty to implement penalty tariffs. And they did, in spades. The trade impact was huge. So, Congress came up with this ethanol defense priority, which was a subsidy to farmers under a different name; but it was allowed under the treaty.
I saw the same article. Used ethanol-free for a while, but the cost/benefit wasn't worth going out of my way for the "pure gas". It costs more to manufacture with ethanol, but the smaller availability makes ethanol-free more expensive. Got a small increase in mileage, but the extra cost ate it up.