Ethanol can be made cheaper out of sugar cane, which can be much cheaper to produce in Louisiana, etc. Also, there is no reason not to switch to Methanol, which can be made at $1 per gallon from natural gas.
Ethanol requirement is just a sop to corn producers in the Midwest.
A few negatives for Methanol: Ceramic composite cylinder walls and Teflon fuel lines and dehydration units and the battery acid effects of its use... and one big thing... it takes a lot more Methanol to fuel an engine than it does gasoline. You get way more power when tuned correctly but it takes more of it to get the job done. Check out the fuel systems on small Methanol powered racing go-karts and outboards and on to circle track cars. Expenses engineering for it will be very high indeed. Ethanol is bad enough. Methanol has many reasons not to use it as a fuel for cars. Take a quart of Methanol and leave it open to the atmosphere for say an hour. Put a mark on the jar where you filled the Methanol to and then come back and look at how much water the Methanol has absorbed out of the atmosphere. America will not pay a premium to burn exotic fuels when gasoline could be pletiful and cheap.
LLS