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"As Ethanol takes its First Steps, Congress proposes a Giant Leap"

• “Congress is on the verge of writing into law one of the most ambitious dictates ever issued to American business: to create, from scratch, a huge new industry capable of converting agricultural wastes and other plant material into automotive fuel.”
• "Hundreds of new factories will be required, perhaps a billion tons of plant material will need to be hauled around every year, and estimates of the required investment start at tens of billions of dollars."
• The legislation calls for “a huge increase in the amount of ethanol used in the nation’s fuel supply. Congress wants to double today’s level of production ………. ”
• “The bill calls for, by 2022, an additional 21 billion gallons a year of ethanol or other biofuels produced by unlocking the energy contained in such biological materials as straw, tree trimmings, corn stubble and even garbage, material known collectively as biomass.” 
•  “….. the sort of energy transformation that was promised in the 1970s and 1980s, until government and industry lost their motivation when oil prices plummeted. Congress says this time will be different.”

The complete text can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/washington/18ethanol.html