Kyl to push end to ethanol tariff

Presidential candidates may be keeping a wary eye on the Senate Finance Committee today, as Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) plans to push for an end to the tariff on imported ethanol.

The deck is stacked in favor of the 54-cents-per-gallon tariff, prized by Iowa farmers whose 2008 votes are hotly sought by both parties. Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the committee’s ranking Republican, zealously backs the tariff and secured Chairman Max Baucus’s (D-Mont.) support for extending it until 2010, staving off an expiration next year.

{mosads}But the debate provides a new opening for bipartisan critics of the subsidy, including President Bush, who argue that Brazilian sugarcane-based ethanol could help pave the way to energy independence. Finance panel members Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) have joined Kyl in proposing to suspend the tariff, which could renew pressure on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to clarify her stance.

The tariff extension is part of a broader energy tax package that is slated for a full Senate vote by week’s end.

Most of Clinton’s rivals, including farm-state Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), support the tariff. But Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), while supporting alternative fuels on the presidential stump, continues to risk political fallout in Iowa by echoing his 2000 criticism of the tariff. During an April campaign appearance, he urged lawmakers to let the tariff expire.