Andrew Welsh-Huggins
July 14, 2008 - 11:38 a.m.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Governors from the coal fields of West Virginia to the intoxicate fields of Iowa talked at their summer meeting about moving beyond ethanol produced just from bread sources.

They sometimes have unlike priorities in reaching this conclusion — priorities that have power to be as uncombined since who grows cereal grain and who feeds it to livestock.

And they're also not talking with regard to replacement such much as supplementing: using switchgrass or wood waste products, for example, along with cereal grain.

Still, the conversation — including an might forum Sunday — has big implications. The nation has 134 ethanol plants in 26 states with 77 more under construction or expanding, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group for the ethanol industry.

This year's horny excrescence crop, expected to be a record, is worth about $52 billion.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department says economic growth in developing countries, tight global grain supplies and demand during the term of ethanol have pushed corn prices to record or near-record prices.

That in turn has led some to blame the push for ethanol on high food prices. Disagreeing sharply, the ethanol industry and corn growers point the finger at memory fuel prices driving up the cost of growing and shipping food.

"Corn-based and commodities-based ethanol for states like Minnesota has been a success story," said the state's governor, Tim Pawlenty.

"But we recognize that this has to now move to phase two," he said.

Pawlenty was in the midst of about half the nationality's governors who gathered for the summer meeting, where according and renewable energy is the top authoritative topic.

Pawlenty, a Republican, launched "Securing a Clean Energy Future" when he took the reins of the National Governors Association remain year as the group's chairman, a one-year post.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry raised the stakes in the debate in April when he asked the Environmental Protection Agency to cut by half a requirement in last year's energy law to produce 9 billion gallons of ethanol in 2008 for blending into gasoline.