We can hear your groans already: Our federal government's effort to curb oil imports by lacing gasoline with ethanol has been a boon to American farmers but a bust to the driving public. The problem is simple economics—pumping E85 (85-percent ethanol and 15-percent gasoline) into today's flex-fuel cars costs more per mile than fueling the same car with regular gas. We're suffering from ethanol's detriments without exploiting its advantages.