Finally found when it started: "
Corn ethanol production has long been a favorite of farm state legislators in Congress, who have promoted the fuel as an alternative to the evils of foreign oil. Congress approved the first ethanol subsidies in 1978, just a few years after the Arab oil embargo of 1973."
So ethanol can be a good thing, just not with the current engines available in this country or while being produced the way it currently is. Cellulosic ethanol wouldn't use feedstock as a source and even using current methods, sugar beets and sweet potatoes would deliver 2-3 times the amount of ethanol per acre than corn.
Methanol is another choice but more work would need to be done to kill that exhaust.
And all of this is assuming we can convert the current available fleet to actually make use of the fuel.
I'd file ethanol in gasoline as yet another example of a good idea with a piss-poor implementation.