Good news for eco-friendly drivers. Tariffs on imported sugar-based Brazilian ethanol were allowed to expire at the end of last year. Even better news for those against wasteful government spending:. Subsidies and tax credits for US corn growers and ethanol producers were also allowed to expire. From The Economist:

Import tariffs and tax credits that have long sheltered ethanol distilled from corn in the United States from the same stuff made from sugarcane in Brazil. Now, for the first time, the two countries that produce more than 80% of the world’s ethanol can sell in each other’s backyard at market prices.

Now that Brazilian biofuels are allowed here in America, ethanol can potentially become a sustainable and somewhat environmentally alternative to certain petroleum products. It might even spur more private investment in American ethanol production as a means to become more efficient and compete with its counterpart.

Distilling ethanol from tropical sugarcane takes less land and uses less fossil fuel than starting with corn grown in temperate climes. That makes Brazilian ethanol, unlike the pampered and grotesquely wasteful American version, competitive with hydrocarbons and genuinely good for the environment.

America’s subsidies and trade barriers were long defended by senators from over-represented, underpopulated rural states (and protected by the fact that corn-loving Iowa holds the first presidential caucuses). But the corn lobby’s influence is waning. Ethanol tax-credits cost $6 billion in 2011: a hard sell in hard times. Corn prices are high, making this a good moment for American corn-growers to start paying for their enormous pickups unaided.