Expanded mandates under the Renewable Fuel Standard provide ethanol and biodiesel producers a guaranteed future market at volumes that exceed what they have produced in the past. Despite having these mandates in place, biofuel producers continue to support tax credits and ethanol import tariffs....

The rapid rise in corn prices that began in the fall of 2006 coincided with exponential growth in U.S. corn ethanol production. At about the same time, new ethanol consumption mandates were added to existing ethanol import tariffs and price subsidies. This troika of subsidies leads critics to...