Senator Shaheen has signed onto a letter to Senate Majority leader Reid and Minority leader McConnell, suggesting that the corn based ethanol mandates, and all the tariffs and protections associated with it, not be extended. Your initial reaction might be surprise, but this is not in and of itself surprising. Shaheen is on the record being against them since at least 2008 when she ran for the US Senate but not because she is against ethanol. Her problem is the kind of ethanol, and so we can assume her co-signers have similar issues.
On the surface they are claiming to be against the law (the mandate) that props up ethanol on three fronts and also gives 31 billion dollars to the oil companies to offset the cost of forcing them to add ethanol to fossil based motor fuels. I’m against corporate welfare so I can’t object to repeal even with ulterior motives, but this starts off as a calculated, backhanded poke in the eye, not just to the stupidity of the subsidy regime that liberals normally love, but to big oil. And we should expect oil to get screwed. We should simply accept that even with repeal of the ethanol mandate, we could still see the government use other means of legislative or bureaucratic force to keep ethanol in the fuel supply and pass those costs off to the oil companies. If they can screw oil and get what they really want along the way, that’s a dream come true to Progressives. But what do these signers really want?
As usual, nothing in Washington is quite what it seems.
had occasion to spend an above average amount of time in the "reading room" over the weekend. No need to go into specifics but perhaps the words Whole Bowel Cleanse, give you some idea of what I mean. 
Nothing says banking, special interests, or rich SOB’s like George Soros. So as you contemplate all the things you have to be thankful for, one of which has to include the defeat of Carol Shea-Porter just a few weeks ago, ask yourself why the guy who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars and fronted dozens of groups, for the sole purpose of destroying America from within, has a family interest in the political fortunes of the soon to be former congresswoman from CD-01?