There's farm subsidies for growing corn that gets used for ethanol. From research over the years, ethanol corn wouldn't be profitable to grow without those subsidies. So because of those subsidies (which are entirely funded through taxes) farmers grow that instead of actual food.
But that's neither here nor there. That's a completely different discussion.
As far as E85 giving worse mileage, that's entirely true. If you're injecting 35 to 50% more fuel, then you'll get 35 to 50% worse mileage. In the turbo V6 community, we usually do it for racing purposes, then we switch back to regular fuel for street driving. Basically the same way some people will run AVgas for a day of drag racing
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