Importing ethanol

So much for energy self sufficiency. We'll be importing ethanol from Brazil this year:

The United States expects to import more ethanol this year despite a hefty tariff as the oil industry struggles to overcome a domestic shortfall in the gasoline additive, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Tuesday.
...
"We're short here domestically," said EIA analyst Joanne Shore on an analysts conference call. "So we should be able to get increased exports (of ethanol) from Brazil. This assumes no change in the tariff structure."

Current U.S. ethanol production averages 275,000 barrels per day, but the EIA says another 130,000 barrels a day of ethanol may be needed to replace MTBE.

Doesn't sound like ethanol will be all that cheap for a while.