With the average nationwide price for a gallon of regular gasoline at $4.07 as we write, most Americans are willing to embrace anything that will stop (or reverse) the rising fuel costs. Several options have been mentioned recently, including removing the federal moratorium on offshore drilling, and adding ethanol to motor fuels. The two presumptive major party candidates have taken different opinions on these options.

During McCain's 2000 campaign, he favored the moratorium. However, McCain has recently said he now supports lifting it to give states the option to drill, citing high gas prices as a reason for his change of position. Campaigning in Florida, Obama asserted that ending the moratorium and returning the authority to decide to drill or not to drill to the states “would not provide families any relief this year, next year, five years from now. We can’t drill our way out of the problems we’re facing.”

The two candidates also take a different stand regarding federal policy towards ethanol, which may be added to gasoline, up to 10 percent of its volume. Mr. McCain advocates eliminating federal government subsidies on the corn-derived fuel, and also opposes the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff that the United States places on imported ethanol made from sugar cane, most of which is imported from Brazil.

Obama, in contrast, opposed last year’s ethanol cooperation agreement with Brazil, arguing that “It does not serve our national and economic security to replace imported oil with Brazilian ethanol.”

A June 23 New York Times article, “Obama Camp Closely Linked With Ethanol,” discusses Barrack Obama’s ties to the ethanol industry, which — considering that the state he represents, Illinois, is a close second to Iowa in corn production — is not surprising:

Among the examples of Obama’s affinity for the corn-based ethanol industry raised in the Times article:

• Obama, along with leaders of the National Corn Growers Association and the Renewable Fuels Association,  helped cut the ribbon last summer when VeraSun Energy held its opening ceremonies for a new ethanol processing plant in Charles City, Iowa.

• A national co-chairman of the Obama campaign, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, now serves on the boards of three ethanol companies and, and also works at a Washington law firm where, as part of his job description, “he spends a substantial amount of time providing strategic and policy advice to clients in renewable energy [ethanol].”

• Obama has twice flown at subsidized rates on jets owned by Illinois-based Archer Daniels Midland — the nation’s largest ethanol producer.
Those who have been following the recent news reports about the devastation wrought on Iowa farmlands by the widespread flooding need not be reminded that corn prices will soon rise — perhaps even faster than the price of gasoline.  Do we really want to divert more of this valuable food crop for use as motor fuel?

Most people would agree that, in the hierarchy of needs, food still trumps gasoline.