Yesterday, the Senate voted to put an end to the main corn ethanol tax credit known as the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit, or VEETC and the ethanol import tariff. The final vote was 73-27!

According to NRDC, “The VEETC isn’t just wasteful and redundant, costing taxpayers $6 billion this year alone and getting almost nothing in return in domestic ethanol production or industry jobs above and beyond what is already mandated by the Renewable Fuel Standard, but it moves the country in the wrong direction. By subsidizing the best and worst gallons of ethanol, the VEETC comes at the expense of developing the new and cleaner advanced biofuels we need to create jobs, increase our energy security and address global warming.”

And, it finally puts an end to the support for a dirty biofuel that wasn’t even good for the environment. Definitely a step in the right direction. Hopefully ethanol will one day be a thing of the past.