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The plight of countless dwindling rural Midwestern towns makes it easy for politicians to use the lure of ethanol-created jobs to net votes. In late January, the Des Moines Register reprinted an American Prospect opinion piece by Tom Daschle, former U.S. senator from South Dakota, claiming that the ethanol industry has created 200,000 jobs. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa boasts on his website that ethanol will create more than 5,000 jobs for his constituents.

In fact, Iowa ethanol plants created fewer than 1,000 new jobs last year, according to a recent study by Iowa State University economist Dave Swensen. Unlike economic studies conducted by industry, his study excludes jobs related to corn farms, since those exist without ethanol. Furthermore, though community residents currently cooperatively own 40 percent of ethanol plants, which helps dollars stay local, Swensen and others expect that as the industry matures and takes the necessary risks to grow, only bigger corporations will be able to afford new technologies. As an aide to ethanol booster Senator Barack Obama of Illinois put it, within three decades consolidation will likely result in less than eight companies running all the ethanol plants in the country.

Given the disconnect between political and economic realities, industry support is poised to increase: In January's State of the Union address, President Bush announced plans to promote alternative fuels to help Americans cut back their gasoline use by 20 percent within the decade.

Legislators have introduced nearly 100 bills in Congress that provide funds to expand the ethanol industry. While there is much talk about replacing corn with cellulosic materials such as grasses and trees that produce more energy-efficient ethanol, there's no legislative mandate for when industry would have to make the switch.

Meanwhile, legislators who once provided informed skepticism of ethanol's cure-all credentials have sung its praises on the 2008 campaign trail: Hillary Clinton told Iowans at a town hall meeting in Des Moines in January that she wants to boost ethanol production; John McCain donned a hard hat and visited an Iowa ethanol refinery in October.

'Every four years you have the gift that God gave the corn industry, and that's the Iowa caucus. Six years ago a guy from the oil fields of Texas assured us that though he was an oil man, he would support ethanol and he certainly has,' says Jon Doggett of the National Corn Growers Association. 'We're looking forward to more of the same.'

This article was supported in part by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism; http://fij.org.

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