[JRTJH]

Looking back at history and the world's "tense eras", I believe a part of the decision to augment gasoline with ethanol was to try to eliminate North America's dependence on Middle Eastern oil. It was a trade off to "accept the negative impact on fuel mileage and engine damage" in order to lower the amount of crude oil being imported from countries that were using our need for energy as a tool to manipulate pricing of crude oil.

Then, at the time the government was paying farmers NOT to plant corn to help reduce the surplus and keep the price of grain from dropping...

So, some who were in power "sold the government" a "scheme" to increase corn production, keep grain prices high, reduce oil imports and not do "too much damage" to the automobile engines that were currently in use.

Once ethanol was "here to stay", the "engine industry" adapted new fuel lines, new carburetor technology, more "fuel stabilizers" to combat the ethanol damage and the price of a gallon of gas (that was supposed to go down slightly with the reduced performance caused by ethanol) started creeping up by the cost of those fuel additives and the increased cost to produce an engine capable of surviving ethanol's damage....

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction...... It's not only true in rocket propulsion, but also in ethanol production..... Just the "Cliff notes" version of what I think I remember from around 1971 when "lead free gas and catalytic converters" started the downward trend in what used to be considered "conventional internal combustion technology" .... YMMV